"Jungle Cruise" a light-footed adventure that coasts on movie-star charm

Jungle Cruise (2021)

Just like “The Country Bears,” “The Haunted Mansion,” and the five “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies before it, “Jungle Cruise” is based on a Disneyland attraction with animatronics. Unlike “The Country Bears,” this isn’t the worst idea for a feature film based on a theme park ride, and movie star charm goes a long way here toward making it a frivolous but rousing romp. Harkening back to the good ol’ days of the summer blockbuster, this is a light-footed, eager-to-please adventure yarn modeled after matinee serials, which were also usually reliant on the likability and repartee of its starry headliners. Getting around in where it borrows from, besides the ride itself—including “The African Queen,” “The Mummy” (the 1999 one with Brendan Fraser, not that Tom Cruise-starring Dark Universe nonsense) and, of all things, “Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid”—“Jungle Cruise” is just fun enough.

Emily Blunt and Dwayne Johnson are charming together, bickering and sharing an amusing give-and-take if little romantic chemistry. She is Dr. Lily Houghton, a plucky botanist and explorer, and he is her skipper, riverboat captain Frank Wolff. The long and short of it all is that it’s WWI-era 1916, London—back when stuffy, sexist society decided women couldn’t wear pants—and Lily seeks an ancient Amazonian orchid called Tears of the Moon. As legend would have it, one petal could cure disease and change medicine forever. After using her dandy brother MacGregor (Jack Whitehall) as a distraction while she steals an important Arrowhead from a historical archive, the two head to Brazil, where they end up finding their skipper and his pet leopard. Frank runs cheap riverboat tours, boring tourists with his eye-rolling puns but forcing the danger with props and costumed locals. He needs a little convincing from the persistent Lily, but who can pass up an adventure?

A master of A-style genre movies, director Jaume Collet-Serra (2018’s “The Commuter”) has a comfortable feel for derring-do spectacle, and considering he’s never helmed a comedy before, he shows a light touch when letting his cast cut loose. Always a sparkling presence, Emily Blunt banters and performs physical comedy with delightful ease (her gracefully intricate moves on a library ladder are even quite reminiscent of Rachel Weisz’s Evelyn in “The Mummy”). Dwayne Johnson’s charisma can clearly be seen from space, and in playing Frank, Johnson sells the intentionally lame pun-filled jokes he gets to sling and even gets to break the dashing archetype a bit with a plot reveal. Channeling an "Indiana Jones" villain, Jesse Plemons gets to be a ham as the deranged German Prince Joachim, who’s after the Arrowhead that Lily pocketed first. The real surprise here is an endearing Jack Whitehall, as the foppish MacGregor, in both performance and how the script makes use of him. The character may seem like fussy comic relief and nothing more, but more effort is put forth with characterization. Without seeming like an empty promise by Disney to make progress, MacGregor gets a lovely “coming out” moment when he tells the accepting Frank that his “interests lie elsewhere” and that his family didn’t accept “who he loved.” 

When sticking to close calls with treacherous waterfalls and underwater heroics, "Jungle Cruise" diverts. The script by Michael Green, Glenn Ficarra, and John Requa can be as mechanical as a ride, bringing the pace to a halt when it comes to a swath of McGuffin exposition. Frankly, the action set-pieces become a bit too busy for their own good, too, particularly when the villains arrive looking like a flurry of CGI. The villains themselves are of the supernatural variety (like Edgar Ramirez as a cursed, snake-infested conquistador), but their design instantly reminds one of the ocean-residing baddies from the “Pirates” movies. “Jungle Cruise” isn’t the utterly soulless product cynics will accuse it of being before actually watching a single frame. Sure, most of the movie coasts along on charm, and the banter doesn’t always crackle like it should, but this is a good deal of fun while it lasts down the river. Sitting back and enjoying the ride is easier when the joie de vivre from everyone involved can be felt.

Grade: B -

Walt Disney Studios is releasing “Jungle Cruise” (127 min.) in theaters and on Disney+ with Premier Access on July 30, 2021.