The animated Jungle Book is one of my favourite movies, my go-to rainy day flick, love the animation, love the characters and all the voices.  And you remember how thrilled I was when I found that Louis Prima CD.  So my standards are insanely high, and this movie met them.  Didn't displace the original in my heart, but nothing could.

The original flick was  areal light-hearted, plot-light farce through the Jungle with a 60s Vegas attitude.  They play with a lot of the Imperial British-ness of the original (blustery old Col Hathi and his elephants, for example) and just have fun.  The remake is more plot heavy, more stakes, more exiting... and that's fine, they did a great job.

Everything you said about the CGI and the movie feeling real?  It totally did.  Incredible visuals, the cast was great... I had forgotten that Gus Fring himself was Akela (when I was reading the book, my mind heard Tom Waits... perfect voice for a wolf, I think), I had also forgotten that Garry Shandling was in there as a porcupine... my only real issue was Christopher Walken as King Louis, because it was so different than the original, but he was good too (did you notice he was summoned with a cowbell?).  But... the whole thing of King Louis wanting to be like other men (he's tired of monekying around) is part of the Imperialist commentary theme, without the rest of it, it feels a bit out of place.  It still works, but...

You know who did knock it out of the park?  Sco Jo as Kaa.  Yesssss, the long, ssseductive ssssnake hersssself.  If you remember, the original Kaa was the same voice as Winnie the Pooh, so there's a very disssstresssing element to it.  It just makes you sleepy, ir makes you feel safe even though it's ssssaying sssuch sssinister thingssss.  And ScoJo just nailed that creepy, seductive scariness in her one scene.  Alluring and dangerous, and the snake animation was just astounding.  But she had NOTHING to do with the main plot, os that scene didn't really fit in.  Not that I'm complaining.  And to hear her sing "trussssst in me" during the end credits?  Oh baby.

Having said all that, I still loved it, would totally watch it again.  And I loved drawing the animals, trying to get them accurate and get their personalities across (I doodled quite a bit watching this).  And it was interesting that they got rid of the original ending and stayed clsoer to the books, with Mowgli staying in the jungle instead of being part of both worlds a la Tarzan (which was directly inspired by TJB).

I think I'm looking more forward to the sequel, since I won't be drawing any comparisons to my beloved original.  I'm real curious to see what else these characters do.. and I can't wait for more Kaa.  And now that I think about it (and have "Dad's Army" on, how great would Bill Nighy and Toby Jones be for the elephants?)