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

2. The Third Act Is Messy & Rushed

Though the first hour-plus of Mowgli feels confident in its steady unspooling of plot and character beats, the final reel of the film goes into intense overdrive and consequently feels a tad too hurried for its own good.

In the final half-hour the plot picks up substantially and a lot happens, but given that this results in numerous character motivations shifting, these moments clearly needed to stew for a little while longer before taking effect.

It feels like the third act crams about half a movie's worth of material into itself, frantically cutting to the story's core in order to bring the film in at a fairly brief 104 minutes (especially as the end credits are almost 10 minutes long).

One can't help but feel that with an extra 20-30 minutes added to the length, Serkis could've explored the focal characters and their convergence towards the final showdown in a far more compelling and gratifying way.

Instead, it feels hacked up and glued back together in order to race to the finish.