YMMV / The Jungle Book (1994)

• Awesome Music:
  • From the same man who did RoboCop (1987) and The Hunt for Red October, Basil Poledouris had provided a memorable soundtrack for this movie.
  • There's also the amazing song Two Different Worlds by Kenny Loggins, which was sadly only featured in the international releases of the movie.
• Best Known for the Fanservice: This movie is definitely remembered for the generous dose of Adaptational Attractiveness it gives to Mowgli, to be played by the handsome Jason Scott Lee, and spending a significant chunk of the run time in nothing but a loincloth.
• Fair for Its Day: While some people have criticized this film for having the Love Interest invoke White Man's Burden to help the main protagonist, the film goes well out of its way to emphasize that this model of thinking is wrong, and that the thinking was completely normal for the time period the film is set in. Furthermore, while Kitty, Doctor Plumford, and Colonel Brydon all have some form of this mindset, they are most definitely not racists, and they openly treat Mowgli not just as an equal, but with open respect, when most British officials treated the Indians with disdain at best, and outright racism at worst. Colonel Brydon is also shown to indicate that he has no trouble with his daughter's romance with Mowgli, which is incredibly progressive given that interracial romance was a major taboo back in the 1890s.
• Fandom Rivalry: There's a mild one with Disney's second live-action remake, which is more obviously following the animated version with talking animals, while this one is an In Name Only adaptation that involves romance and adventure.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In his review, Roger Ebert talked about the In Name Only premise and wondered "What's next? Tom Sawyer with a car chase and a shoot-out?" Well...
  • Given Mowgli's age-up to become a sexy jungle man in a loincloth, and a romance with an English Rose who has a Bumbling Dad, it's not hard to think of Disney's animated adaptation of Tarzan that followed five years later - especially since Jane in the source material is American and made British.
• Narm: Tabaqui's Disney Villain Death, which is clearly a cheap effect and has him screaming in a hilariously odd way and his eyes bugging out.
• Questionable Casting:
  • Mowgli should, logically speaking, be Indian, seeing as the story is set in India and seeing how the child Mowgli is clearly Indian and played by Sean Naegeli and has a clearly Indian father. But for the grown-up Mowgli they went with the Chinese-Hawaiian Jason Scott Lee.
  • More like Questionable Animal Supplying: Bombay, the tiger who played Shere Khan is rather small and unimposing whenever he shares the screen with a human actor, while Shere Khan is usually depicted as a hulking beast of a Bengal tiger, yet the movie more or less acts like their Shere Khan fits that criteria. The latter case is partially justified by Bombay doing so many stunts that involved getting close to people. Up-close "Big cat attacks" are known as one of the most dangerous stunts an animal trainer can do with an actual wild animal and can go very wrong quickly. Having a smaller tiger made it a little safer to work with.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Lena Headey (a.k.a. Queen Gorgo, Sarah Connor and Queen Cersei Lannister) as Kitty.
  • Faran Tahir (aka Raza in Iron Man and Capt. Robau in Star Trek (2009)) is Mowgli's father, Nathoo.
  • Jason Flemyng as the bumbling Lt Wilkins, who would become a more famous character actor for the likes of Primeval, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Kick-Ass and X-Men: First Class.
• Signature Scene: The most remembered scene of the movie is when Shere Khan hunts down and kills Wilkins in the third act.
• Special Effect Failure: The green screen effect mentioned under Narm. Also, the brief CGI close-up shots of Kaa haven't held up well.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: The movie is surprisingly dark, with several violent action scenes and downright gruesome deaths for the villains.

---