The latest live-action version of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Books, Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle directed by Andy Serkis, is the most authentic adaptation of the 1893-95 stories compared to Disney's 2016 version directed by Jon Favreau., Disney's 1967 animated musical or the Technicolor 1942 version directed by Zoltan Korda.
Kipling’s tales are largely about a young boy named Mowgli who is raised from infancy by a pack of wolves (a la Romulus and Remus) in the jungles of India. As he learns the rules of the jungle under the tutelage of a bear named Baloo and a panther named Bagheera, Mowgli becomes accepted by the animals of the jungle as one of their own, except for one; the fearsome tiger Shere Khan.
Using his trademark motion capture digital effects, Favreau has the man-cub Mowgli interacting more realistically with his animal companions. But Serkis’ version adapts Kipling’s stories and poems with fewer family-friendly deviations.
