Film Review: JUNGLE CRUISE (2021): Leads Shine in a Mediocre Adventure Film

Jungle Cruise Review

Jungle Cruise (2021) Film Review, a movie directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, and starring Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Paul Giamatti, Edgar Ramirez, Jack Whitehall, Jesse Plemons, Veronica Falcon, Dani Rovira, Quim Gutierrez, Dan Dargan Carter, Andy Nyman, Raphael Alejandro, Simone Lockhart, Pedro Lopez, Sulem Calderon, Mark Ashworth, and Allan Poppleton.

The new Disney film Jungle Cruise is a lot of fun in the opening scenes. Dwayne Johnson has just the right characteristics to appeal to audiences of all ages. His co-star, Emily Blunt, has probably never turned in a bad performance. All the elements are present for a fun, good time but despite the film’s pleasant first half, it becomes a run-of-the-mill adventure film replete with unnecessary special effects. Johnson and Blunt are the real special effects and they don’t need all the added visual effects to make you want to root for them.

Discussing the plot in a film like this is silly since the plot is just an excuse for some witty banter and action sequences. But, I’ll give you an overview. The film’s main action begins in London in 1916. Lily Houghton (Blunt) is trying to get her hands on an arrowhead which is said to help uncover a petal which can cure illness. We get all the information on this magical petal right at the film’s start. Lily secretly steals the arrowhead while her brother MacGregor (Jack Whitehall) keeps the surrounding people occupied with the details of a long-winded business proposal. But, Prince Joachim of Germany (Jesse Plemons) is in hot pursuit of the arrowhead and chases Lily.

Enter Frank Wolff (Dwayne Johnson), who cracks corny one-liners while taking people on a cruise on the Amazon. He owes Nilo (Paul Giamatti) every cent of the money he earns giving these cruises. When Frank fights a seemingly vicious jaguar and scares it off right in front of Lily, she agrees to let him take her and her brother to the destination where they will apparently uncover the magic petal. She trusts Frank.

Edgar Ramirez serves as a cursed conquistador and he’s one of the central bad guy heavies in the movie. Ramirez is adequate here while Plemons’ Prince Joachim is played to perfection being the other wicked character in the film. These characters do what they need to do to advance the plot but are not the highlight of the film. The leads are.

Dwayne Johnson pretty much takes over the movie with his charm. Whether he’s giving a talk on a cruise, underwater helping Lily or fighting off piranhas, Johnson’s charisma is fully intact here. Blunt is a perfect match for him and their scenes together are like pure magic. That aforementioned jaguar turns out to actually be Frank’s friend and the big cat is also one of the highlights of the movie being very adorable and charismatic.

Jack Whitehall as Lily’s brother is so-so as the character is a little annoying in the beginning although he becomes more tolerable as the film progresses. Paul Giamatti has very little screen time but gets off without doing any damage to his wonderful career. I would have liked to have seen more of him in this film.

James Newton Howard delivers a musical score that is Oscar-nomination worthy and keeps the movie moving forward whether the images are always living up to the score or not. It’s among one of Newton Howard’s better recent scores and that’s saying a lot.

The images of snakes may turn off younger viewers but if they look away for a few moments, they’ll be charmed by Johnson and Blunt’s performances. If I was 15-years old, I may have liked this film more. It felt like some of the scenes were just going through the motions. They were a little formulaic too. One of the underwater scenes felt implausible. We don’t go to a movie like this for plausibility but we don’t want to be shaking our heads in disbelief either.

The big question here is whether or not Lily and Frank fall in love. It’s a possibility but I’m not giving anything away on that particular regard. See Jungle Cruise if you want to re-live an Indiana Jones film but know going in that it’s not on that level. It still has its moments.

Rating: 6/10

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