Jungle Cruise Explained: What’s Up With the Ending?

Jungle Cruise

Genre fantasy, adventure
Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra
Cast Dwayne Johnson (Captain Frank), Emily Blunt (Lily Houghton), Jack Whitehall (McGregor Houghton), Jesse Plemons (Prince Joachim), Paul Giamatti (Nilo), Andy Nyman (Sir James Hobbs-Cunningham) and others.
Студии Walt Disney Pictures, Seven Bucks Productionsruen, Davis Entertainmentruen
Release year 2021
Site IMDb

This is not the first film based on popular attractions. For example, the Pirates of the Caribbean series of films was inspired by a themed river trip that Walt Disney himself organized. There are a few other lesser-known examples: the thriller Tower of Terror, the sci-fi thriller Mission to Mars, the comedy-horror The Haunted Mansion, all fueled by the success of the rides of the same name. .

As for the Jungle Cruise movie, it really feels like a high-speed fun ride through the Amazonian jungle, during which tropical animals, flying arrows, and artifact-chasing villains appear from all directions. The film crew traveled to Hawaii to capture these shots, but most of the adventure was created using CGI. The result is a very rich Disney picture that mixes reality with a fairy tale. There are no talking animals here, but there are tame predators, as well as the damned dead, entwined with poisonous snakes.

The film is set in 1916. Scientist Lily Houghton (Emily Blunt), accompanied by her prim brother (played by British comedian Jack Whitehall), leaves London for a spontaneous trip to the tropics. The heroine believes that in the very heart of the Amazon grows a tree with a special flowering endowed with magical properties. Lily knows she’s far from the only one who can’t wait to get her hands on the healing flower of legend, so she’s in a hurry to find a riverboat captain with whom to embark on a perilous expedition. By coincidence, her guide is Frank (Dwayne Johnson), a hard-core trickster who entertains tourists by staging attacks by the natives.

Western critics compare the film to the film classics The African Queen, Romancing the Stone and even The Mummy released in 1999. What can I say, there really is a similarity. The area where the events take place is teeming with mortal dangers, and the main characters treat each other with distrust and constantly conflict, not noticing how a romantic attraction arises between them. However, Walt Disney Pictures is making adjustments to the old motifs, adding a personal confession from the character of Jack Whitehall to the script (previously, the writers deliberately avoided this), as well as several modern rethinkings, which, however, do not push the essence of the film into the background.

The on-screen duet between Emily Blunt and Dwayne Johnson turns out to be surprisingly successful — the actors capture the humorous mood of jungle adventure, don’t try to be too serious, and hone their comedic skills on each other. Perhaps with another actress, this effect would not have happened, but if there is Emily Blunt in the film, then in principle it is difficult for the audience not to be fascinated.

Director Jaume Collet-Serra (he’s directing the upcoming superhero film Black Adam starring Dwayne Johnson, by the way) pays a lot of attention to the skirmishes between the main characters. From them, he switches to the evil antagonist Prince Joachim, played by Jesse Plemons (it’s funny that the actor, filming with Martin Scorsese, still agrees to such roles) — this is a German aristocrat, moving in a submarine, caricatured towards his goal to classical music.

The character of Jesse Plemons gets a large portion of screen time, which is why the background of other antagonists is slightly lost in the film (healing flowers gather around an incredible number of characters). The fate of these villains is shown in a chaotic flashback that rushes through the audience like a rollercoaster, leaving only a few bright spots in the memory instead of a coherent story about the conquistadors.

Such a rush does not particularly affect the perception of the film, after all, “Jungle Cruise” is a fun fantasy adventure, and not a film adaptation of a real expedition. Yes, it’s filled with colorful details that lose some of the storylines, but it ends up being a fun show for the whole family (based on the PG-13 rating).

Pros: On-screen duo between Emily Blunt and Dwayne Johnson; rich Disney picture; Tropical Adventure Cons: Hastily presented conquistador story Conclusion:

Jungle Cruise is the perfect summer movie. In fact, this is a two-hour movie attraction.

Originally published at https://creativejamie.com on August 12, 2023.