311 - Jungle Cruise

Disney has already turned one of its theme park rides into a box office colossus - is it time for another? They seem to think so, bringing us Jungle Cruise, an adaptation of one of the attractions from Disneyland's grand opening in 1955, the Jungle River Cruise, starring The Rock, who we still refuse to call Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, and Jack Whitehall, as explorers searching for the Tree of Life. The film gives the ride more than a nod and a wink, The Rock's character operating a cruise along the Brazilian Amazon, complete with the real ride's cheesy dad jokes - and there's effort made to reckon with the attraction's history of racist representation of indigenous peoples. How successfully it does so is up for debate, the film indulging in its own cultural imperialism - despite being set in Brazil, there isn't a word of Portuguese spoken; and no matter the purity of their intention, the characters are still in Brazil to take something that doesn't belong to them. We also discuss the film's feminism and sexual politics, as embodied by Blunt's and Whitehall's characters, the setting in 1916 and the use of England rather than the USA as a point of origin for its story, and consider who the film is for - Mike sees its relationship with the likes of Jumanji, Indiana Jones, Hook and The Mummy, and is sure that he'd have loved this as a kid as much as he did those. It fails to really explore the poetic potential of some of its ideas, and one too many action scenes feel like they need explosions to keep things exciting, but on the whole, Jungle Cruise is a likeable bit of popcorn fodder with three terrific performances, and chemistry to match. Recorded on 6th August 2021.