RADIO1'S MR. MOVIE!-MAD AMI š
10
By RADIO1'S MR. MOVIE!-MAD AMI š
**Provided You -_SURVIVE_- All The "OVERKILLš¤® Mud & Slime, & The HUNDREDS Of Bugs|Beesš IN The Slime" . . . . . . . You'll Find That The Film's Long, Enthralling Buildupšŗ, And Its Eventual GRAND FINALĆ . . . Are Indeed . . . Absolutely, Positively SPECTACULARš„š .**
A "Good, Old Fashioned", **-{ _B I G_ }-** Screen Full Length Review . Viewed around August 02, '21 .
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Frank Wolff : " Hey , McGregor ! . . . Had a girlfriend once, she was cross-eyed. Didn't work out. We could never see eye to eye ! " .
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**1. " What A Ride šā"** : This is a journey filled with Colour, Beauty, Awe, Drama, _Massive_-Spectacle, but **Most of all , " T O N S . . . OF _HEART_ " .** And then of course, there's all the **_Humour_.** Now, I like to think of myself as a person who has a ( fairly ) high bar when it comes to the funnies, so I just -_have_- to say, Dwayne Johnson's 'Frank Wolff' delivers so **MANY -{ _GENUINELY_ }- RIB TICKLING 'SPUR-OF-THE-MOMENT' PUNS** in Jungle Cruise ( 'J.C', for short ), that I -_Honestly_- couldn't help but get "drawn in", & to the fullest, at that . . . almost '_Every-Single-Time_'. Not to mention all the masterfully executed _Slapstick_ humour š { a little taste of which is in the movie's -"Official Trailer 1"- ( August 2020 ) }. All in all, expect Two-hours-and-seven-minutes of Non-stop **" Lavish, Wholesome, -FAMILY - " entertainment .**
**2. So, Does He Still Charm, Endear, & Delight ?** Short answer : **YES . . .** he can , & -_Does_- , still ( well and truly ) "Rock" The Boat. **HOWEVER,** I sincerely urge you not to expect any particularly 'Oscar-worthy' sort of performance from 'The Man' himself, Mr. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. Meaning { things like } : you're just going to get the 'Same-Old', run-of-the-mill _American Accent_ from him yet again . . despite him playing the role of a _Spaniard_ . . living in -Brazil_. ( Although to be fair, this was almost _Certainly_ a directorial-Call by the picture's absolutely **_OUTSTANDING_ š ** Director, Jaume Collet-Serra ; for reasons I -Shan't- disclose, for fear of giving away '_too much_' ). Simply -{ _Expect_ }- to see him put in a **"Thorough & Dedicated Performance",** with a few _impressive_ "Surprises" sprinkled in to the mix, for what it's worth. And inasmuchas the sister-brother duo of Emily Blunt's 'Lily Houghton' & Jack Whitehall's 'MacGregor Houghton' are concerned, ready yourself for an incredibly **'FUN'** journey with these two "_Effusive, mega-Talented Stars_ ", and veterans of Film and Telivision, respectively. In the "nascently Post-Victorian" setting of J.C, you are likely to find theses two characters to be nothing less than "sheerly " . . . **ADORABLE, CHARMING, & DELIGHTFUL.**
**3. "Jesse Lon Plemmons" Was The Marvellous "Shock "...** of this huge movie { well for _-Me - _ ateast, that is to say }. He portrays the tyrannically _'Monstrous''_ German **"Prince Joachim :** _your worst nightmare straight outta World War 1_ ", in Jungle Cruise. In real life, he's the partner to bubbly, adorable global **'Giga-star', Kirsten Dunst** { _ALL_ the 'Spiderman' films ( _the ones with with Tobey Maguire, that is_ ) 2002-2007 }. So here's the thing. Not much having been a big afficionado, for the most part at least, of the whole **'Breaking Bad'** thing, { arguably his first 'REALLY, REALLY' big-break ( _as 'Todd Alquist', 11 Episodes, 2012-2013_ ) }, I'd somehow managed to let his **"WHOPPINGš„" _Sixty-Three Acting Role Career_ ( _Thus_-**far, at least ) ; somehow slip under the radar, with the sole exception being his ( relatively ) "Diminutive" -yet "tremendously enjoyable"- part as the genuinely likeable 'Jimmy -Ordy- Ord' in 2012's massive blockbuster, 'Battleship'. And _Now_, to see him { almost as though } "coming out of nowhere", take on this _Way_ larger-than-life kind of part ; & play it with Utter, Consummate , **" C L A S S "** . . . . ( oh, & don't even det me -Started- about his _German Accent_Ā ). . . . suffice to say that his performance was 'Gloriously, Gleefully AndĀ Mischievously',Ā well . . . . **" _IMMACULATE_ " .**
**Summation :** It certainly bears mentioning, just before you & I part ways ...that I actually -_went_- on the **"_REAL-LIFE_ CRUISE"** ( that this veritable cinematic gargantuar gets its name from ) at the "_ANAHEIM_"-Disneyland... with my late, & **Super-Beloved Dad š,** on his 50th Birthday. Only problem is, I was very much younger at the time, & can -_Barely_- remember it. So, needless to say, this picture had a very special resonance for me. And indeed, if not for the all the titularly referenced, **"GROSS-OUT"** _Mud|Slime|Bees,_ I might just have given this film my { _trademark_ **;)** } 12 or -even 13- out of 10, ( reserved **-_Exclusively_-** for films that I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY enjoy ). However, as that stuff -_DID-_ actually bother me a fair bit, **( SORRY, BUT THAT'S JUST _-ME_-Ā )** . . . It's going to remain a **Solid 10 Marks Out Of 10.** Still " not too shabby , eh " . . . " _Wouldn't 'Ya Reckon_ š
š„ā" .
tmdb28039023
N/A
By tmdb28039023
Jungle Cruise takes ample liberties with the legend of Lope de Aguirre in particular, and with Reality as we know it in general (and, I assume, with the attraction on which it is based; how else to explain that a seven-minute ride turns into a two hour-plus movie?).
Aguirre had previously inspired Werner Herzog's Aguirre, The Wrath of God and Carlos Saura's El Dorado, searching in both for the mythical city from which the latter takes its title. In Jungle Cruise, the 16th century Spanish conquistador (Ćdgar RamĆrez) is in search of the Tears of the Moon, a tree whose petals can cure any disease, heal any wound and lift any curse ā including a kind of eternal youth, in light of which director Jaume Collet-Serra and screenwriters Glenn Ficarra, John Requa, and Michael Green should have used Ponce de LeĆ³n instead of Aguirre.
Now, the names Herzog and Saura will surely be foreign to a person who watches Jungle Cruise willingly, in which case this hypothetical viewer will be unaware that in the two films mentioned above, the characters sail real rivers in real jungles and interact with real animals.
In Jungle Cruise, Captain Frank Wolff (Dwayne Johnson) fights a tiger so phony-looking that it could be a cereal mascot (definitely not what William Blake had in mind when he spoke of "fearsome symmetry" in "The Tyger"); this scene is awkwardly choreographed and has a predetermined outcome ā not unlike what Johnson used to do in WWE, except that even in the ring he was facing another being of flesh and blood, not a tiger that, like all other animals in this film, belongs to the genus computatrum generatae.
Now, Iām fully aware that Aguirre, The Wrath of God, and El Dorado are dramas, while Jungle Cruise is, at least nominally, a comedy. However, I don't think this exempts it from achieving a modicum of realism; the saying 'itās funny 'cause itās true' is not a clichĆ© for nothing.