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The Jungle Book is the 2016 live-action remake of the Disney animated film adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's works, of which the film also draws. Jpn Favreau helmed the film while Justin Marks wrote the script.
As the 1967 film, the film tells the story of Mowgli, a child raised in the Jungle by a pack of wolves until the arrival of Shere Khan, a tiger with a murderous hatred for man. With Shere Khan on the hunt for the child, Mowgli is forced to leave his only home and travel to a nearby "man village". In his way, Mowgli meets new animals, some more friendly than others, and discovers who he really as Shere Khan grows more and more persistent with killing Mowgli.
The rare critically succesful Disney remake, the film was also a commercial success. A sequel had entered development, but is currently stuck in Development Hell.
- Adaptational Badass: Baloo. Aside from some play-fighting with Mowgli, he showed no actual fighting skills in the 1967, to the point Shere Khan beat him to a pulp with no problem. Contrast that with his 2016 self, who manages to give Khan a legitimate challenge.
- Adaptation Distillation: The film combines the plot and characterizations pf the 1967 film with the tone and some elements of the original books.
- Ax Crazy: As Raksha said, Shere Khan kills for pleasure and power rather than survival. For example, his reaction to seeing Mowgli and his biological father is to attack them both.
- Incorrect Animal Noise: The sound effects used for the Bandar Log are those of chimpanzees and siamangs.
- Misplaced Wildlife: India is a huge country with a wide variety of ecosystems, climates and biogeographical regions. As a result, you can throw in several animals which are all native to India, but wouldn't meet each other in the wild. Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book-and the multiple adaptations, such as this movie-are concentrated in the Seoni region of Madhya Pradesh in central India, but a number of animals do not inhabit the region at all, such as the Indian rhinos-which live in the northeastern state of Assam and on the borders of India and Nepal-.
- Mowgli's wolf family look more like the kind found in North America and Europe, rather than Indian wolves, which are quite lean.
- Several of the monkeys in the Bandar Log are native to India, but don't occur in the Seoni region; while the Hanuman langurs fit biogeographically, the northern pig-tailed macaques, hoolock gibbon and golden langurs only live in northeastern India, the lion-tailed macaques and Nilgiri langurs live in southwestern India, and the hoolock gibbons look more like white-cheeked gibbons, which live in Vietnam, Laos and China; their sound effects are also those of siamangs-native to Malaysia and the Indonesian island of Sumatra-and chimpanzees-which are native to central Africa-.
- Baloo looks more like a Himalayan brown bear than a sloth bear, which is restricted to the Himalayas and northern regions of India; this, however, could be a Stealth Pun, regarding how lazy he is.
- While Baloo and Bagheera are pursuing the Bandar Log, the cry of a red-tailed hawk-native to North America-can be heard.
- Never My Fault: Shere Khan blames Mowgli's father for burning his eye, nevermind that Khan himself started that fight.
- Mythology Gag: The legend Bagheera tells Mowgli about the creation of the Jungle was lifted straight from the story "How Fear Came".
- Reality Ensues: Baloo's fighting skills. While he's as carefree as his 1967 self, the fact remains that he's a bear living in a jungle full of predators, neaning he has to know at least basic self-defense skills to survive.
- Truer to the Text: While the fact that the film is a remake of the 1967 film means it has to stick to that version to some extent, it nevertheless tries to pull as many elements from the original books as possible, most notably giving the wolves a major role.
- Unskilled but Strong: While Baloo's carefree lifestyle means he has little fighting experience, he neverthless shows some geniune prowess as a fighter. Not only does he defeats (and possibly kills) Kaa and fights off King Louie's troops with little effort, but he's the only one to give Shere Khan an actual physical challenge.