Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra (the House of Wax (2005) Director!)
Written by a gaggle of dudes
Starring Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt (treasure), Jesse Plemons, and Jack Whitehall
MPAA Rating PG-13 for adventure and violence 
Running time 2 hours, 7 minutes in other words… a heck of a lot of business

by Rosalie Kicks, Hunter Bush and Audrey Callerstrom

“I told you not to wear trousers…”

"Doc" Hunter Bush: To paraphrase Guns 'n' Roses: “Welcome to the Jungle Cruise, we've got fun and games..”. but only if by fun you mean shtick that we run into the ground and by games you mean talented and likeable actors with not a whole lot to do. It's obvious the Mouse House wants to recreate the lightning-in-a-bottle magic of Gore Verbinski's Pirates series, but they're trying to do it by literally recreating it. From the style of action set pieces, to the look of the special effects, to the rat-a-tat dialogue, it all feels like one of the Pirates sequels. Why is that though? What is the missing ingredient that allowed Curse of the Black Pearl to be both a huge hit and remain a good movie while the sequels were all just highly profitable imitations? Obviously they don't know or they'd have thrown that in the pot as well.

Rosalie Kicks, Old Sport: Despite there being so much business going on in this movie, there still seemed to be something missing. There was no spark or drive. The script seemed to constantly be worried about getting to the next action sequence and forgot that it actually had to tell a story too, which is a shame when looking at the cast. Dwayne Johnson as Skipper Frank Wolff clearly was giving it his all and trying to captivate the audience. Unfortunately, his efforts were fruitless because the character was never developed in a way to inspire us to care. Emily Blunt portrays Lily Houghton, whose main purpose on screen was to discuss the fact that she was donning pants. The word “pants” is referenced nineteen times throughout the film (thank you Audrey for being an official pants counter) which is a sign of sloppy script writing but yet, makes for a lovely drinking game. 

There were monologues that should have been shown, not told. There was an abundance of characters that served little to no purpose. There was a plot that was so convoluted that it essentially required the use of a physical map (a map is also a main prop utilized in the film) to navigate the story it was trying to tell. Somewhere along the way many someones (as there are a gaggle of dudes that wrote this thing) forgot the main purpose of a movie entitled, Jungle Cruise and that was to simply, entertain. 

Audrey Callerstrom: Jungle Cruise is boring and largely joyless. Let’s give it to The Rock, who is always present in any role. He treats this role with sincerity. Decades of having to perform for giant arenas will do that to you. He is always playing to the back row. I can’t say the same for Emily Blunt, who plays Lily, a … Scientist? I think. Blunt coasts on being a plucky British woman without ever trying to be a character in a movie. I don’t see how this character is any different than her rendition of Mary Poppins. There are scenes of physical humor she can’t pull off. Why not just put in Melissa McCarthy instead? For a film that takes place in the jungle, Blunt is perpetually clean, not a fly away in her hair, her clothes neatly pressed. I don’t feel any sense of danger or suspense when it feels like someone is touching up her lipstick between every take.

I was hoping that Jesse Plemons, as an evil German soldier, would really camp it up here, like really just brought it the way we know he can. But he doesn’t, which is too bad because it seems like he could have had a lot of fun with it. I do like when he talks to a bee, because I dunno, bees. 

The Rock and comedian Jack Whitehall, as Blunt’s sister, carry the film well, but this is another jumbled mess of special effects that only take place when it’s very, very dark. Like the grey mess that was the final fight scene in WW84, everything happens in muted colors, in the dark, and too fast for you to assess what is happening. The chemistry between The Rock and Blunt is.. not there. They feel like strangers in an elevator. Honey, it’s The Rock. You need to quench. 

“Doc” Hunter Bush: To Audrey’s point, Jesse Plemons, as well as Paul Giamatti, both have nothing to do in this movie. I don’t even understand Plemons’ function in the script. Does he have one? Wouldn’t it have made more sense for Giamatti’s boat-owning...loan shark (?) to be chasing Rock, Blunt & co. up river to retrieve the engine that Rock “stole” from him? Rather than Plemons’ WWI-era German submarine commander? Can you even get a sub that far up the Amazon? If you cut Plemons’ character and that whole (no pun intended) subplot, you could have given Giamatti a bunch more to do so he wouldn’t have to do so much business.

For those who have not seen the film: Giamatti is, in no particular order - doing an accent, wearing a gold tooth and some serious facial hair, and carrying a parrot. All for his 1 and ½ scenes. That is “business”. A LOT of business. To Plemons’ credit, again as Audrey said, he actually restrains from too much business. Just the accent and the military regalia, but otherwise he’s pretty calm.

Rosalie Kicks, Old Sport: The more I allow this “movie” to stew and simmer in my brain makes me realize that it is just one big unfortunate misfire. I honestly believe that everyone involved here was seriously giving it a go, but the lackadaisical script got in the way. There are a few specific moments that the actors do indeed shine, but I believe this is a film that really has no identity of its own. 

Is it a homage to Indiana Jones… or maybe… Tomb Raider or is it… Pirates of the Caribbean? By the amount of–as Hunter referred to–business going on, there is unfortunately little connective tissue to link all of it together or make it worthy enough to give a damn about. The story manages to go in zillion directions never finding it’s destination.

I found the end result of Jungle Cruise to be ever more heartbreaking, when I learnt that director Jaume Collet-Serra, was the person responsible for the 2005 flick, House of Wax. Having this guy helm the boat meant there was the potential to get weird and wild. In some aspects I believe he did, but there were also signs of much restraint that can most likely be attributed to the great mouse. As Audrey mentioned earlier: Jesse Plemons and the bees. There is a literal scene in which Jesse is taking advice from bees. That is bizarre. There is also a villainous man that was made entirely of honey and eats himself. All of this absurdity is welcoming, yet falls flat due to an over productive screenplay. There are also plenty of moments in which I felt someone just stopped caring completely what was on screen, like when the overall color tone of the film randomly changes for no particular reason and then flips back to its previous state. 

There is a scene in which Lily (Blunt) is capturing a moving picture with her camera and explains to Skipper Frank, “They’re so fun! You can experience being anywhere in the world.”. Well in the case of Jungle Cruise, I would have rather been anywhere else than on that 127 minute adventure. Now excuse me, I must go acquire a subscription to The Weekly Earls. 

Hunter Bush: I laughed SO hard at that Weekly Earls gag!

Audrey Callerstrom: Hunter, it’s funny you mentioned Guns N Roses because when a character named “Trader Sam,” a woman with dark hair, puts on a top hat, I was like “that’s Slash!” Then I made a mental note to listen to “November Rain” because that solo at the end slaps like hell.

Hunter Bush: I was trying to describe how Jungle Cruise just did not work for me, and what I realized is: the most frustrating thing about it is how close it comes to being a flick I would have really enjoyed. There are supernatural elements, which I’m all for, but they come so late in the run time that their weirdly horror-adjacent vibe felt mishandled; some relic from an earlier draft maybe. Same with Giamatti’s character, as I mentioned above. There were so many obvious cuts that could have been made to make it run smoother - whole characters, whole sequences that felt left in due to obligation as opposed to them serving a purpose. The sequence on the rapids for instance doesn’t come to anything, does it? But if you’re in a boat on the Amazon, I guess you need that sequence, so…

I guess ultimately what sticks with me is how Jungle Cruise never really feels like its own movie. Rosalie compared it to Indiana Jones and Tomb Raider and while those influences are definitely present (and almost obligatory at this point probably) those franchises feel different from each other. That may actually what really set Curse of the Black Pearl apart when it originally premiered: it has its own vibe that felt inspired by- but not a copy of- what had come before. If Collet-Serra (also the director of the under-seen Orphan from 2009) had been given a bit more room to run, and a tighter script, I think Jungle Cruise could really have settled into its own unique groove and we’d probably all have enjoyed just rolling, rolling, rolling down that river.