Radcliffe fights through ‘Jungle’

In “Jungle,” as young Israeli adventurer Yossi Ghinsberg (Daniel Radcliffe) and his just-met traveling companions Kevin (Alex Russell) and Marcus (Joel Jackson) make their way through thick, forbidding Amazon forest in uncharted Bolivia, you think, surely we’re heading toward a cannibal reckoning.

That’s because the director, Australian horrormeister Greg McLean is at heart a visceralist: A fire ant bite merits a zoomed close-up, and when the trio’s enigmatic guide (a tantalizing Thomas Kretschmann) kills and cooks a monkey, every tear and bite is a virtuoso piece of foley crunch.

“Jungle” is a true story, based on Ghinsberg’s memoir of his disastrous 1981 trek. Yossi gets separated and must fight punishing nature and his deteriorating self just to survive. But eventually that mismatch of foreboding genre terrors with triumph-of-endurance adventure gives “Jungle” a problem of momentum and drama, wherein it never feels exactly bracing or revelatory.

Despite the physicality of the movie, with its impressive cinematography and Radcliffe’s believable, all-in disintegration, it’s more earthbound slog than psychological deep-dive. Even more head-scratching, the movie ends with catch-up info that reveals a larger unsolved mystery about that journey, and suddenly Ghinsberg’s survival pales in comparison to the other suspenseful movie that starts unspooling in your head. — Robert Abele “Jungle.” Rated: R for language and some drug use. Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes. Playing: Arena Cinelounge Sunset, Hollywood.