‘Jungle Cruise’ — Spoiler-Free Review

Indiana Jones meets Pirates of The Caribbean in this family-friendly river journey to nowhere

Courtesy of Walt Disney Studios

The Jungle Cruise ride was one of the first attractions at Disneyland in 1955. Since then another version has opened at Disney World Park in Florida, in addition to other Disney parks across the world. However, recently the ride has been criticized for its use of animatronic indigenous people, who are shown as savages in the ride.

In light of the controversy, Disney has opted to remodel the rides at both Disneyland and Disney World. As such, it appears that Disney has decided to release the ‘Jungle Cruise’ movie alongside this remodeling. Possibly in hopes of creating a revamped attraction alongside a popular movie.

This could explain the unpolished plot that this movie exhibits. Despite its lack of originality, it somehow still accomplishes its mission, which is to entertain kids.

The Jungle Cruise in Disneyland. Photograph: M2 Photography/Alamy

Movie Background

Lily Houghton (played by Emily Blunt) enlist the help of a boat captain named Frank (played by Dwayne Johnson). Her goal is to find a tree that is said to have magical healing powers. She drags her brother McGregor (played by Jack Whitehall) along for the adventure. The mighty Amazon River is not their only battle, they must also race against time as they are not the only ones after the tree.

Spoiler-Free Review — Barry’s Bites Rating= 6.8

‘Jungle Cruise’ has one mission in mind, being an adventure movie aimed at kids. It accomplishes this in a way that its target audience will be entertained and leave the theater happy. There is plenty of light humor and action that will be right up the alley for any kids.

Frank Masi/Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures  

Personally, I’m a big fan of Emily Blunt and Dwayne Johnson. The script played perfectly into Blunt’s wheelhouse. She was able to pull off a quirky yet determined main character. It’s a believable performance, despite the lack of any injuries and well-maintained makeup throughout the adventure.

Dwyane “The Rock” Johnson also leans into his character well. He achieves the goofy and pun-ridden riverboat guide. It’s a performance that will add well to his portfolio since he accomplishes what he was brought on to do. Side note, any of us would be lucky to have him as our captain if we were taking a ride down the Amazon.

The drawbacks of the movie are not the actor's fault. Despite its stacked leading cast, the script and the overall plot hold all of the actors back. Instead of feeling like you’re watching a movie, it feels like an expanded theme park ride. The filmmakers seemed to take the longest route possible to accomplish the mission within the movie, reaching the magical tree. In place of creating an exciting journey, they just created a boring one.

For adults, the theme misses the mark of being a romantic river adventure. It feels like an attempt to create a suave novel-like journey, however, the use of green screens ruins all of those efforts. Audiences are used to CGI by now but it has to be more subtle and believable so that it's an underlying feature. We expect it in the Marvel movies but at least it was believable. In ‘Jungle Cruise’ it’s more obnoxious than useful.

Most of us love the movies of our childhood. We would be more than happy to sit down and rewatch ‘The Incredibles’ or ‘Toy Story’. However, ‘Jungle Cruise’ misses the mark in that way. The whole movie feels like a one-time watch because there’s not much to the movie. Besides the good versus evil battle, there’s nothing memorable about the plot. Not to mention most of the humor seemed to miss its mark. Almost like it was written by children, not for children.

Despite its flaws, ‘Jungle Cruise’ is still an entertaining movie, especially for its kids-focused audience. Check out the trailer below!