Disneys takes at live action non massive franchises have been a mixed bag. While some stay in on a straight line like Beauty And The Beast others like the dead on arrival John Carter just can’t kickstart a franchise they want. Jungle Cruise however goes the way of taking a ride and trying to turn it into a film or even a franchise. While it does some things right and is fun its also with just as many flaws.
Dr. Lily Houghton hires joke cracking skipper Frank Wolff (Dwayne Johnson) on a search for a magical tree that holds the power to heal people in an adventure down The Amazon. The story tries to make sense and for awhile manages to be half decent enough. Once we really start to near the climax however the plot holes just become large enough to form a second Amazon river down. Magic starts to get involved more, supernatural characters and powers come and just as quickly go, and the film takes almost a massive nosedive.
The main thing the film has going is two strong leads with Blunt and Johnson. Both are so likable on their own that even with Blunts character not being far past a cliche, she still manages to make the most of it. Even Dwayne while being funny and entertaining as usual doesn’t have much to go off of based on this otherwise paper thin character. While they attempt to make chemistry between these two main leads its truly just the like ability of both that leads to that, not the characters they are sadly portraying.
Sadly the film even falls short in its attempt to be a blockbuster action film. While at its start the film shows much promise with some fun tight spaced action scenes and a few much grander scale ones. It quickly falls into a CGI slugfest sporting at times some less than on par visuals for a high end Disney film. As the film progresses the set pieces tend to lose any magic and become quickly forgettable.
While it all may sound bad the film itself isn’t awful entirely and is fun for a mindless watch. With some cleaning off the run time, a tighter story, and some better set pieces Disney could have had a huge franchise starter, granted this did do great so time will tell, but this was just a slight fumble of what could of been.
Score :
3 / 5
