Mark Reviews Movies: JUNGLE CRUISE

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Review by Mark Dujsik | July 29, 2021

One can sense what the filmmakers are trying to do with Jungle Cruise. It's seen in the grand entrance of one of our heroes—climbing on the smokestack of his steamboat, grabbing a hanging vine, swinging all the way around the vessel and right into the boat's bridge. It's heard in the rat-a-tat bickering between that skipper and his main passenger, our other protagonist, as they trade insults and debate every major or minor detail of the journey and, eventually, find themselves perfectly suited for one another. It's obvious from the plot, which is an adventure, of course—but mostly just an excuse for that banter and plenty of death-defying action.

The movie, set in 1916 and mostly on the Amazon River, is clearly modeled after an old-fashioned adventure and plenty of movies of decades long past—back when the charms of legitimate movie stars could carry or even elevate such intentionally simple and often simplistic material. In theory, director Jaume Collet-Serra has all of the right pieces in place here: a screenplay based on a theme park ride (meaning there almost certainly can't be too much to the plot), a backdrop filled with all kinds of wondrous and deadly potential, and two actors who either are movie stars or are as close to the modern-day equivalent that we have these days, when established franchises and recognizable properties (such as, say, a theme park ride) are meant to be the real draw for audiences.

In practice, though, the movie often steps on or trips over its own intentions. It knows what it wants to do, but the occasional successes of purpose and tone here are routinely undermined by a reliance on fake spectacle and general fakery, a bit too much by way of exposition and building mythology, and the fact that one of its stars either hasn't been provided a character or doesn't quite know what to do with that role.

Glenn Ficarra and John Requa's screenplay does, thankfully, get right to the simple heart of the matter. In London, Lily Houghton (Emily Blunt) uses her brother MacGregor (Jack Whitehall) as a distraction to steal an ancient artifact from the archives of a snobby and sexist historical society.

With the artifact in hand and the megalomaniacal German prince Joachim (Jesse Plemons) following them, brother and sister head to the Amazon in Brazil, searching for the petals of a magical flower. According to legend, it can cure any ailment and break any curse, and Lily believes it could revolutionize medicine (You don't say).

Our other hero is Frank Wolff (Dwayne Johnson), the pilot of a steamer out of a small port on the Amazon. He gives tours of the river for a living, filling those journeys with all sorts of props to make things seem dangerous—although his puns might be the most perilous part of the tour. He's a scam artist, of sorts, although he's mostly just here to be generically charming.

That characterization—or, better, the lack thereof—is one of the larger hurdles the movie can never quite overcome. There's little denying that Johnson, surely the biggest star in movies these days, is charismatic and funny, as well as an almost literally larger-than-life presence. Here, though, his introduction—despite the heroic entrance—points toward a man who's bored with his lot in life. It's a distinct choice—and one that eventually makes a lot of sense once the actual history of Frank's time in Brazil is revealed. It's also, though, kind of the wrong one, especially once either Johnson or Collet-Serra decided that the leading man can't be a bore. Once Johnson turns on the usual charms, the character and any sense of what the actor's performance is attempting disappear.

The others, at least, fare better. Plemons puts on a ridiculous dialect to amusing effect. Whitehall begins as a privileged fop (subverting the idea, for example, that Lily would be the one with a lot of luggage), but there's more to him (All of that initial foppery, though, starts to look unfortunately stereotypical once the "more" is revealed). The real standout, though, is Blunt, who's as funny as her character's sense of derring-do is convincing. She gets the rhythm of Lily and Frank's banter, too, while Johnson just tries to keep up.

The action features the usual staples, such as a close-call with a waterfall, a chase through the port that leads to an escape from a submarine, and a few fights with mortal and supernatural foes. As for the latter opponents, the heroes eventually have to contend with the wrath of Aguirre (Edgar Ramírez) and his fellow undead conquistadors, but the momentum of the story can't contend with the sudden influx of back story and myth.

All of this starts to feel increasingly and then overwhelmingly routine, and Collet-Serra's reliance on visual effects gives everything and everyone (An eerie glow surrounds the actors against the digital backdrops) a sense of the unnatural, which defeats the purpose of the central location. Jungle Cruise makes its aims and its inspirations apparent, but ultimately, it's just a model of—as in, not real—fun.

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