Jungle Cruise is a movie of many feats. Disney has made year another big budget feature based on a ride no one would think would make for a movie, which is a feat. It’s also a feat that a movie trying to be adventurous can feel so flat or that charismatic actors can seem to not gel. Not offensive enough to be seen as a soulless cash grab but not good enough to make you feel that your time is being valued, Jungle Cruise is a misfire.
The story of Jungle Cruise follows Lilly Haughton (Emily Blunt) a scientist who dreams of finding an ancient flower located in the Amazon that can cure disease. Taking off for the southern land with her brother (Jack Whitehall) in tow, she’s forced to team up with riverboat captain Frank Wolff (Dwayne Johnson) to reach her destination. Complicating her journey is the villainous Prince Joachim (Jesse Plemmons) and a long gestating curse that threatens to end our heroine’s journey, permanently.
It’s hard to pinpoint just where the movie stops working because at almost every turn the movie wants you to feel like it’s a dazzling epic. Audiences might be carried on by the feel of the epic ness, but the pacing and visual choices made by director Jaume Collet-Serra and team just weigh the movie down. Lily’s amusing escape in the opening, whether by virtue of the score or the editing, does not feel as thrilling as it’s being told to me via the filmmaking choices. For a country and era with some vibrance (the costuming of this film is unimpeachable), there’s not really a shot or moment that made me feel as buoyant as say Will Turner and Jack Sparrow fighting on a sea-sawing piece of wood. Emily Blunt and Dwayne Johnson, two of our most watchable stars, truly feel like chemistry silos or ships passing in the night. They’re doing exactly what the script is asking of them (so many pants jokes) and yet, I got nothing.
Because of the lack of chemistry between the two leads and the flat direction, the story and character issues become more glaring. This movie is in the long history of white saviors going into foreign lands for one reason or another and causing a ruckus. Some of those movies are phenomenal, yet problematic like the 1999 film The Mummy. Jungle Cruise however, doesn’t have the sizzling chemistry of that film nor stakes that make it feel worthwhile like needing to stop a mummy from bringing his dead lover back and ending the world. While Blunt’s character remarks that recovering this leaf could cure all the disease in the world, there’s no human faces to the problem of the protagonists. The villains get more of fleshed out backstory and screen time dedicated to their decision to make the quest. The consequence of that is that the movie makes the exploits of it’s main character feel like they are much more about her getting due respect in society and becoming a hero rather than helping the world. It made sense to me why the Amazon and its people would refuse her and make her work extra hard, what’s the use in helping these characters?
Much will be and has been made about MacGregor, Lily’s brother, played by Jack Whitehall, being gay and I just want to let you know that once again it feels like a press circuit is making more than the movie makes. It’s true he gets a nice chat with Frank talking about how he was ostracized from society for breaking off engagements and that his tastes lie elsewhere. It’s a convo that would feel more meaningful if it wasn’t being used to prop up his sister as a good woman and if the movie did anything else with this character. Does he get to be interesting outside of this brief moment? No. Does he get to be particularly good at something? No. For all intents and purposes, he’s just the next evolution of the gay best friend, there to be the wise cracking supportive character with no true plot relevance. I know the writers of this story were not serious with this character, cause the only character of the main trio that’s sexless is the gay one.
Only Jesse Plemmons manages to escape this movie unscathed. Plemmons has made a meal of villains before and he chews every bit of scenery that he can in his German Prince role. Any time he’s on screen the movie gets some kind of energy and it’s a delight to watch him interact with the other actors, if only to elevate their performances to something that Jungle Cruise can’t hold down.