This was a new experience for me having never seen Disney movie based on a theme park exhibit despite Disney having produced 726 movies based on Pirates of the Caribbean alone.
Our daughter Randie has seen Haunted Mansion and her report was it isn't very good.
We went into Jungle Cruise a bit hopeful given the track record of it's two stars, Emily Blunt and Dwayne Johnson.
If you expect a movie based on a theme park ride is going to be big dumb fun, the Jungle Cruise does exactly what you expect it to. But this movie does more than simply expand a charming but silly ride into a feature length story but it knowing draws a lot on movie history, featuring homages and echoes of Romancing the Stone and The African Queen.
In 1916, Dr. Lily Houghton with her brother MacGregor reluctantly in tow secures the services of a jungle cruise captain Frank Wolff to take them deep into the Amazon in search of the mythic Tears of the Moon, a mysterious plant of legend that has extraordinary healing properties.
In addition to contending with an Amazonian jungle where everything is trying to kill you and a not quite completely trustworthy Frank, Lily is trying to stay ahead of Prince Joachim, a German aristocrat also in pursuit of the mystic bloom himself.
On one side of this equation is one botanist, her more than a little squeamish brother and an untrustworthy boat pilot on a boat that is barely holding it together.
On the other side, Prince Joachim has a fully armed German submarine full of German seamen.
(Pause for laugh.)
(Continue.)
The odds may seem a little unbalanced against her but Dr. Lily Houghton can throw a pretty mean punch so do not count her out.
The movie may have some issue with tone for what is an otherwise fun adventure romp for the whole family. In an early sequence, Prince Joachim summarily kills a bunch of people simply because someone said his name out loud.
The incredibly strange creatures who stopped living and became mixed-up zombies who show up later in the film, composed of rotting fleshing festooned with slithering snakes are frighteningly grotesque and may be too scary for certain innocent souls.
Parents, avert your eyes.
Kids will think it's cool.
Lily's brother MacGregor is comically high maintenance. Is he just a foppish British dandy or is he gay?
Both, it turns out and the revelation happens in a deftly handled sequence between MacGregor and Frank; MacGregor explains that because he loves who is loves, the rest of his family and society have shunned him except for Lily. Because Lily did not abandon him, he will follow her into hell itself.
Frank greets this revelation with calm acceptance and offers a toast to being true to one's self.
Frank is more than he seems, a jungle cruise captain and con artist who is exceedingly fond of bad puns. The bad puns are a part of the actual Jungle Cruise ride at the Disney parks.
But as the film progresses, we keep learning more about who he really is. Whoever you think Frank Wolff is at the beginning of the movie, he will be far away from that before it ends.
You might have to go back to Cary Grant's role in Charade for a character with this many levels to his identity.
Emily Blunt is as always frickin' amazing. Her Dr. Lily Houghton is smart, funny, quick witted AND quick on her feet. She can think and she can fight and she will NOT take any bull from anyone.
And Emily and Dwayne have excellent chemistry together, hurling sharp barbs and sharp punches.
Jungle Cruise is a great movie to see on the big screen with epic vistas of the Amazon jungle and bone rattling action sequences that fairly explode from the screen like thunder.
I don't want to oversell this movie. It is not a cinematic masterpiece for the ages or anything like that. But if you're looking for thrills, chills and a lot of laughs along the way, Jungle Cruise does the job very well.
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