Wet, not wild
Cert 12A ★★★
Contrary to popular belief, Disney hasn’t given up on making original films to concentrate on rehashing all their old cartoons. Occasionally, they also make movies based on their old theme park rides.
Jungle Cruise ranks somewhere in the middle of this mini-genre (between the first Pirates Of The Caribbean and the first and last Tomorrowland) but at least the ride in question has some cinematic pedigree.
The steamboat adventure was inspired by the movie The African Queen, still a massive hit when Disneyland opened in California in 1955.
Clearly, big screen entertainment has changed somewhat over the decades. Here, Humphrey Bogart’s weather-beaten, booze-addled steamboat captain has turned into Dwayne Johnson’s hulking Frank Wolff, a mildly roguish sailor who looks like he’s been sprinkling protein powder into his bottles of grog.
And instead of Katharine Hepburn’s prim, sharp-tongued spinster we have Emily Blunt playing a feminist scientist called Dr Lily Houghton.
Arriving in Porto Velho in northwest Brazil in 1916, the good doctor hires Captain Frank to take her and her useless brother MacGregor ( Jack Whitehall, playing himself ) up the Amazon to find the fabled Tears of the Moon, magic blossoms that can cure all ills. Hot on their tails is a
German submarine captained by the evil Prince Joachim ( Jesse Plemons) who wants to co-opt the petals into a hazy plot to take over the world.
The screwball banter between Blunt and Johnson is a few thousand leagues from Bogart and Hepburn, but the action is pacy, the CGI is slick and a camp Whitehall manages to raise two small-to-medium-sized laughs.
Sadly, when a gang of undead conquistadors wash up, the film begins to sail dangerously to the territorial waters once occupied by Pirates’ far more flamboyant Captain Jack Sparrow.
Kiddies like the big man, but Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson is no polished diamond like Johnny Depp.
He looks like he’s been sprinkling protein powder in his bottles of grog