CJ Fairman

  Can they recapture the magic of the original? They “Shere Khan!” There is a common complaint about movies today - that too many of them are either a sequel or a remake or hybrid of the two. So when we heard that both Disney and Warner Bros. would be releasing live-action versions of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Books , many rolled their eyes, thinking we’d be getting more of the same.   The first of these modern adaptations to be released is Disney’s version, which is more of a remake of their 1967 animated classic, right down to the plot and the songs. And while they are walking through some familiar territory, there is still an… “elephant” of surprise (sorry, that’ll be the last one). So how does this new version hold up against the original? THE STORY The main premise of the story remains largely the same; Mowgli, the man cub raised by wolves, must be returned to the village to keep him safe from the hateful tiger, Shere Khan. Along the way, Mowgli and his protector, Bagh...

  How Zootropolis isn’t just another talking animal flick   “Isn’t that a bit of a children’s film?” That’s what my mother had to say when I told her I had told her I had seen the latest Disney feature film twice over the weekend. In a way, this is understandable. The premise of Zootropolis (also known as Zootopia in North America) is that there is a city populated by evolved, civilised animals living harmoniously together. That certainly sounds like a children’s film, doesn’t it? Animated movies featuring anthropomorphic animals have become a staple of children’s entertainment, with all the major studios producing franchises around the concept; Dreamworks has just released the third entry to their Kung Fu Panda franchise, and 20th Century Fox are to release a fifth Ice Age movie this summer. As these movies increase in number year by year, there also seems to be a decrease in the quality of the humour. While Kung Fu Panda 3 didn’t suffer from this, the trailer would lead y...