Somewhere deep in the Amazon Jungle hides the ancient Tears of the Moon, a mythical tree that can cure all injuries and lift all curses.  Seeking to find the tree and harness its healing powers for the advancement of science and medicine is Dr. Lily Houghton (Emily Blunt).  With the help of her brother, MacGregor (Jack Whitehall), and a tourist ferryman, Frank Wolff (Dwayne Johnson), who she enlists, the trio embarks on the treacherous journey through the winding rivers to uncover the centuries-hidden secret.  It won’t reveal itself easily, though, as not only do the dangers of the jungle abound, but Prince Joachim (Jesse Plemons) also seeks the magic tree to aid Germany in The Great War and will stop at nothing until he harnesses its powers. 

Jungle Cruise is an action-adventure film in the vein of Indiana Jones and the litany of imitations that followed.  It is a film that is not only bogged down with repetitively choreographed set pieces which, even within the definition of the genre, rely too heavily on coincidence for our heroes to escape, but it is a film with so little to say or do and does not justify its 127-minute runtime.  The script provides very little motivation for the adventurers and there is even less character work throughout the film to make up for the soft plotting. 

Plemons is in a career-low with Jungle Cruise. After a string of unique films by some of the top directors working today, Plemons finds himself playing the caricature of an antagonist, complete with a mustache and an over-the-top accent, that is too bumbling to even be thought of as a threat.  It is even more disappointing, then, that Prince Joachim manages to be the only character with any true motivation in the film.  Cartoony and comical as his character is crafted, he very clearly states that he wants to bring the power to Germany so that she may rise to glory once again in Europe.  Joachim, despite being poorly conceived, is the only character with any discernable and definable stakes in this film. 

Looking next at the three heroes, it follows the character dynamic blueprint of Stephen Sommer’s  The Mummy (1999) to a T but fails to deliver in all other aspects of a swashbuckling adventure. MacGregor is lazily written and does not even fill the role of goofy sidekick well.  Whereas John Hannah’s Jonathan would stumble his way into – and occasionally out of – trouble, MacGregor is only ever treated as a cheap punching bag during the few times the script even remembers he is on the cruise.  It makes the heart-to-heart scene he shares late in the second act with Wolff even more frustrating and unearned because as quickly as the script remembers that MacGregor exists, it drops him just as quickly.  This is less an example of poor ensemble management, but it is because MacGregor is the latest victim in the ever-growing list of inclusivity pandering characters that will be promptly cut from the global release to keep the coffers full at the House of Mouse. 

Keeping to the blueprint, even down to a familial connection, Emily Blunt’s Lily is the brains of the operation.  She is a lesser version of Rachel Weisz’s Evelyn in every way, the major difference though is that Evelyn helps to guide the plot forward.  Lily, rather, is following the story along a track like the amusement ride which this film draws loose inspiration; her actions are never made from the needs of her characters but she only ever serves the needs of the plot.  This not something you ever really want to see in a script, especially from the lead character.   

It is a symptom of the script’s mismanagement of the MacGuffen.  The secret to finding the Tears of the Moon lies vaguely in an arrowhead amulet which Lily obtains in an opening scene ripped straight from the 1999 film that Jungle Cruise tries so hard to emulate.  The major difference here being that the Book of the Dead carries narrative weight throughout the entirety of the sun-soaked dessert adventure while the arrowhead is often forgotten about and does not come into play in any real capacity except to bookend the film’s set pieces.  Without counting, it is a safe bet to make that there are more references to Lily’s pants than the arrowhead that is supposed to be the key to unlocking this jungle mystery.  

Finally, we have the captain of the cruise: Dwayne Johnson’s Frank Wolff.  Johnson, to his credit, is working with a very weak script and doing what he can, but it still seems like he is phoning in his performance.  He has the same screwball-grinning charm that he brings to all these roles, and if you enjoy that sort of thing this will surely delight, but this typecasting rut he is curently in the midst of has quickly worn out its welcome, and like the rest of the ensemble there is very little else that drives these characters.  An attempt is made to flesh out Wolff, but it is handeled in such a cumbersome way that instead of creating interest it just triggers eye rolls. 

There is some unintentional irony of theme that does keep coming up throughout the narrative in which Lily is growing increasingly angry with Wolff as she finds it harder and harder to trust him.  These arguments are held in the overly rendered CGI landscapes, of which many things look just slightly out of place.  Between the various animals, the landscapes themselves, and the smoke from the boat’s engine – none of it looks good, especially from a studio as big as Disney that can afford to do better.  The CGI is used as a filmmaking shortcut in Jungle Cruise instead of a tool to instill wonder in the audience, and while there is a valid argument to be made that the effects in Raiders of the Last Arc (1981) and The Mummy are now themselves artifacts of their time, the filmmakers still put forth an effort to work in the physical when possible.  By achieving a better balance of what is real and what is rendered, the final images tend to look more homogeneous, whereas Jungle Cruise, because it leans so heavily into the CGI, the layers become apparent.  

Yet somehow, and with all the power of imagination at their fingertips, the entire look of the film still leaves much to be desired.  It is understandable why they would choose to use so many earth tones, but from the brown murky river that courses through the muddy ramshackle village and then passed through a sepia filter to add some period elemnts to the film, these choices backfire and the images end up looking washed out and uninteresting.  This color choice holds through for almost the entire film, even when the crew is deep into their expedition, the wonders they discover all have that layer of skum over the image.  

For what Jungle Cruise lacks in terms of visual interest and excitement, the lore of the world it creates does offer narrative value.  The setup for the Tears of the Moon, Aguirre (Edgar Ramírez) and his band of conquistadors who sought its powers and suffered the perils of the jungle is a very captivating story which pulls on director Jaume Collet-Serra‘s horror roots. We finally see the deep lush greens of the jungle, and the supernatural elements allow for some interesting character design.  Despite the truly strange and jarring creative choices used during these origin scenes, specifically in its soundtrack, it is still unfortunate that we are only in this world for a few minutes before returning to the uninspired quest taking place in 1916.    

Jungle Cruise is a paint-by-numbers film that may be passingly enjoyable for the younger crowd – even if entirely too long – but does not capture the mature audience.  It draws so heavily on the films that came before it without understanding what made them so special and therefore cannot even serve to scratch a nostalgic itch.  The film only ever lives in that moment so that once the camera cuts to a new sequence, everything that came before it is purged and nothing is ever setup to serve a larger narrative arc.  The imagination, skill, and artistry that went into creating the ride that inspired the film is nowhere in sight, and because of that absence we are left with a hollow movie that fails to create its own identity, and most importantly for films in this genre, it forgets to have fun.