Disney’s “Jungle Cruise” is an almost old-fashioned bluckbuster on the trail of the classic “African Queen”
In this full week of cinema, not only is the knight film experiencing its resurrection with “The Green Night”, a second, no longer everyday genre is also being revived. “Jungle Cruise”, as the title suggests, is an old-fashioned jungle adventure on the trail of the classic “African Queen” – but accelerated in places to the pace of Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean”. First of all, it is the “film adaptation” of the Disneyland attraction of the same name, which has been in operation since the Californian park opened in 1955. The original designer Harper Goff was inspired by the adventure film with Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart, in which a ramshackle boat has to pass extremely impassable waters.
Emily Blunt is the new Katharine Hepburn, but she is drawn to the jungle not as a missionary, but in the service of science. A resolute charm that cannot be objected to is of course just as useful. The ideal addressee for this is always a macho man of the incorrigible kind; this game of gender roles is nothing that 1950s Hollywood (directed by John Huston) has not already mastered. As a skipper, the muscular Dwayne Johnson does his best to force himself into the old Humphrey-Bogart outfit – right down to the characteristic porcini hat.
You are not in Africa, but somewhere in South America in 1916, when the word “Amazon” did not even make you think of a mail order company. However, the river was shot in Hawaii and Arizona, which at least did not expose the participants (as in the secret example from 1951) to the risk of tropical diseases.
The likeable couple is accordingly in a good mood, complemented by Jack Whitehall in the role of the gay dandy brother of the Emily Blunt character. For a heterosexual actor, he makes this very convincing, although one can of course wonder what is gained with this kind of friendly representation of minorities. When Disney recently re-filmed “Lady and the Tramp” with partly Afro-American cast, the impression arose of an American South at the turn of the century without racial barriers. Here the historical image is transfigured with the utopia of a natural acceptance of homosexuality.
The German villain
On the other hand, there are enough proven role clichés left for the other minor characters that you don’t have to worry about. One of the villain characters is a German treasure hunter named Prince Joachim, played with a fake accent by Jesse Plemons. Klaus Kinski is sorely missed, because the conquistador Aguirre, immortalized by Werner Herzog in the film of the same name, is also allowed to pay his respects. And then space and time are finally lifted and you sail free in the fantasy realm of the “pirates of the Caribbean”.
Anyone who has visited the “Jungle Cruise” in Disneyland will primarily remember the artificial, funny moving animals on the banks of the cruise. Actually, Walt Disney had wanted to build a real zoo there, but abandoned the plan when he was told that real animals often sleep. Sleeping viewers would be even more threatening, especially for a 200 million blockbuster, of which we do not know how many there will be after the Corona crisis.
The predictable plot of the film directed by Jaume Collet-Serra would have little to do with sleep. There’s actually nothing in this treasure hunt that hasn’t been seen much nicer in one of Steven Spielberg’s “Indiana Jones” films, including Teutonic villains. If you still like to watch, that’s just because of the lovable main characters.
Above all, Dwayne Johnson is really worth seeing: the former wrestler is at a similar point in his career as Arnold Schwarzenegger when he began to question his own role image. In the role of the supposed top macho, who could not harm a fly, Johnson develops a special kindness. But he doesn’t become a “kindergarten cop” because of that, but claims the screen presence of a “leading man”. Stars like Johnson only exist in the cinema; the big screen produced them.
That, too, is a reason to treat this “jungle cruise” with goodwill. Hollywood has long been talking about whether such large-scale productions can still be financed in the age of streaming.
Jungle Cruise. USA 2021. Regist: Jaume Collet-Serra. 127 Min.
