Mowgli: Legend Of The Jungle Review - 5 Ups & 4 Downs

Downs...

4. The Underdeveloped Human Characters

There are only three significant human characters in the entirety of Mowgli, yet aside from the titular protagonist himself, the others are given only the most cursory, surface-level of development.

Freida Pinto shows up late in the movie as Messua, Mowgli's new adoptive mother, though she appears and disappears from the story with a certain randomness before the audience can learn much about her or Pinto has much of an opportunity to do anything.

Then there's Matthew Rhys, who is absolutely well-cast as hunter John Lockwood, and while he avoids the cartoonish colonialist stereotypes associated with the character, he also isn't given a whole lot to do.

There's so much insight here into Mowgli as a human being and conversely almost nothing for the other human characters. Given their scarcity in a movie jam-packed with CGI animals, that's a sure shame.