Disney’s 1967 animated “Jungle Book” was one of my favorite movies as a child—the music was fun, Phil Harris’ Baloo was even more fun, George Sanders’ suave Shere Khan was frightening and awesome. And as sad as it made me, the ending was brilliant: as with all coming-of-age stories, Mowgli has to grow up, and his series of entertaining adventures must come to an end as he enters real life in the man village and leaves his animal friends behind.

This year’s live-action “Jungle Book” is a coming-of-age story as well, in a different way. When Mowgli (Neel Sethi) is introduced, he is racing his wolf pack through the jungle. He tries to beat them by taking paths wolves cannot, but his plan fails, and he is beaten again. Mowgli’s mentor, Bagheera the black panther (Ben Kingsley), chides him for deserting the pack: “You were not born a wolf, but could you at least try to act like one?” Later, Akela (Giancarlo Esposito), the leader of the wolf pack, corrects Mowgli again, when he frightens the other animals at a watering hole by pulling water to him with a bowl on a string, rather than going down to the water.

When he meets Baloo (Bill Murray), Mowgli is finally encouraged to use his “tricks,” in order to help the bear collect honey from a high cliff—and this signals an important development in his character and in the story. But in the meantime, Mowgli is being hunted by the injured tiger Shere Khan (Idris Elba), who wants to kill him before he can become a man, like the one who burned the tiger’s face.

“The Jungle Book” is visually stunning. I had heard it advertised as live-action, but in fact, the only real live action is Mowgli. The film was shot in studios in Los Angeles, and the animals and scenery were computer-generated. Yet the animals are remarkably detailed and realistic, and the fusion of motion capture from the actors’ faces into the animals themselves was incredibly subtle. The music borrowed heavily from the 1967 animated film, featuring both a selection of the musical numbers themselves, and a lot of references within the score. Neel Sethi was adorable, and made up for some weakness in his acting with charm; the voice cast was superb; and the story flowed well between action, suspense, and comedy.

This movie shows more of Rudyard Kipling’s influence than the 1967 cartoon. I must admit that as a child I did not read many stories from “The Jungle Book,” after I realized they were not remotely like the movie I loved so much, but I’ve read a lot of Kipling in general, such as “Kim” and the “Just So Stories,” so I could recognize that this film had the feel of a Kipling story. The characters repeat “the Law of the Jungle” several times:

Now this is the Law of the Jungle—as old and as true as the sky;
And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die.

As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth forward and back—
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.

This poem is taken straight out of Kipling. And it was this infusion of Kipling that gave the story its most interesting aspect.

When they first begin their journey to the man village, Bagheera and Mowgli see some elephants. Bagheera tells Mowgli to bow to them, and then he adds something that could have come straight out of Kipling: “The elephants created this jungle,” he says. “They made all that belongs: the mountains, the trees, the birds in the trees. But they did not make you.” This is a mythological etiology of the Jungle, but within the mythology, Mowgli is unique. He is not an animal or the creation of an animal. And thus, instead of making a picaresque journey to adulthood as portrayed in the 1967 animated feature, Mowgli comes of age by fully coming into his capabilities and identity as a man.

As I mentioned before, Mowgli is discouraged from using his “tricks”—technology—until he meets Baloo, who is willing to use anything to get the honey he wants. And Mowgli’s abilities allow him to do things no animal could dream of doing. His humanity is contrasted with the character of King Louie (Christopher Walken), the enormous monkey who wishes he could be human. Mowgli, using just his wits and the things around him in nature, has been able to create knives, tools for climbing, and shelter. King Louie lives in an abandoned human temple filled with human artifacts, but all he can do is hoard them. He cannot create, and he cannot innovate.

Human abilities and technology are not perfect in “The Jungle Book.” Fire, or the “red flower,” is portrayed as a dangerous tool that can destroy everything in its wake. In fact, the images of the destruction that fire causes are very reminiscent of the forest fire in Disney’s “Bambi,” with its dire announcement that “Man is in the forest.” Yet in “The Jungle Book,” even though a future man is in the forest, he is not merely a force of destruction. He brings order and hope to the animals bound by their instincts. He even helps the gods of this animal pantheon, the elephants.

“The Jungle Book,” therefore, provides an unusual and refreshing perspective. We are so often told that we are just one kind of animal, evolved from other animals. This should be patently absurd, when we have the language to discuss our origin, and when we have the technology to create works of art. It would be particularly ironic not to acknowledge the distinctness and superiority of humankind in a film that using computer technology was able to portray incredibly realistic and detailed talking animals, not to mention the detailed jungle sets around them. We are often told that to exercise human power over animals leads only to harm. But this film showed through the story, through several exciting scenes, and through one particularly iconic shot, that humans are different and can be the masters of the world around them, because Mowgli, even without education or human community, and without being in any way a tyrant, truly “subdues the earth.”

So, for anyone looking for an entertaining, beautiful, family-friendly but also thought-provoking film, Disney’s “The Jungle Book” is an excellent choice.

“The Jungle Book” is rated PG for some sequences of scary action and peril.

Kaitlyn Elisabet Bonsell thinks that the ideal human voice for Arthur the Labradoodle would have been Frank Oz. Arthur the Labradoodle thinks Alan Rickman.