Movie Review – ‘Jungle Cruise’

Hello everyone! 🙂

Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!

Last Friday, my parents and I saw another film on Disney+ that was released simultaneously both at cinemas and on Disney+. ‘Jungle Cruise’ starring Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt was meant to come out at cinemas in 2020, but it was rescheduled to this year because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

I purchased ‘Jungle Cruise’ with premier access on Disney+, hoping to find this a very entertaining and fun ride. Thankfully it was and I’m glad my parents and I had the experience of seeing the film at home. Watching films on Disney+ with premier access might be coming to an end quite soon for me.

The movie is based on a Disneyland theme park ride, much like how the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ films were based on a theme park ride as well as ‘The Haunted Mansion’ and ‘The Country Bears’. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to visit a Disneyland theme park to know what their rides are like.

But it didn’t matter as I was looking forward to seeing this fun romp of a film taking place in a jungle and out on a river. The film follows the captain of a small riverboat who takes a group of travellers through a jungle in search of the Tree of Life. It’s intriguing how the film’s backstory gets built upon.

The film takes place around the time of the First World War. There are plenty of action sequences to enjoy from watching this film as well as bouts of humour galore. There are also some scary scenes featuring monstrous snakes, spiders and such, which might be quite frightening for some kids to see.

It was great to see Dwayne Johnson (a.k.a. the Rock) appear in this film as Captain Frank ‘Skipper’ Wolff, who’s in charge of his steamboat. I’ve seen Dwayne Johnson before in the two ‘Jumanji’ films that came out recently and I’ve seen him in a ‘Star Trek: Voyager’ episode, which I hope I will revisit.

Emily Blunt stars as Dr. Lily Houghton, who’s an eccentric, adventurous and virtuous scientist searching for the Tree of Life. I’ve seen Emily Blunt before in ‘Mary Poppins Returns’ and she briefly appeared in ‘The Muppets’ 2011 film. It was equally fun to see her in this film with Dwayne Johnson.

This film could easily have not gone in the direction of Captain Frank ‘Skipper’ and Lily falling in love with each other as that has been done quite a number of times in movies and TV. As is, I didn’t mind it so much when they did fall in love as I suppose it had been built upon gradually during this movie.

The film also features Jack Whitehall as MacGregor Houghton, Lily’s younger brother and reluctant assistant. There’s also Édgar Ramírez as Aguirre, who is a Spanish conquistador that became cursed whilst searching for the Tree. The curse aspect of this movie also connects to Frank’s character here.

There’s Jesse Plemons as Prince Joachim, who is a deranged and ambitious German aristocrat who finances and leads a military expedition to claim the Tree of Life. There’s also Paul Giamatti as Nilo Nemolato, a crusty harbourmaster who is manager of the port where Capatain Frank docks his boat.

The cast also includes Veronica Falcón as Trader Sam, Dani Rovira as Sancho Kapoor, Quim Gutiérrez as Melchor and Andy Nyman as Sir James Hobbs-Coddington. The performances of the cast have been fun to watch in this film, especially when the drama, the action and the comedy balances well.

Whilst watching the film, I recognised the instrumental of the song ‘Nothing Else Matters’, originally performed by Metallica, in the film’s score by James Newton Howard. I’ve heard a version of ‘Nothing Else Matters’ by Gregorian, used in Babelcolour’s tribute for the Master in ‘Doctor Who’. 🙂

‘Jungle Cruise’ has definitely been a fun ride ( 😀 ) to watch on Disney+ with premier access. I’m glad my parents and I saw it lately. It was fun to see Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt together in a film and the action, adventure, drama and comedy balances out well despite some of the scarier aspects.

Thanks for reading!

Bye for now!

Tim. 🙂