It’s the hyperreal CGI, in all its warmth and ferocity, which is the crowning glory of Jon Favreau’s wondrous remake of The Jungle Book. The sweeping savannahs and steamy jungle floors are beautifully rendered, creating a fully immersive (and at times oppressive and frightening) experience. There are stunning set-pieces galore: a particularly impressive shot sees an intrepid Mowgli and his wise protector Bagheera framed perfectly against a dwarfing jungle waterfall. Another sees a terrifying Lion King-esque buffalo stampede, and an eerie river scene (an oblique reference to Conrad?), representing the film’s occasional darker turns.

The animals are breathtaking. Around 70 species native to the Indian jungle feature in the film, giving a depth and believability that simply could not have been a part of the technologically limited 1967 original. Drawing inspiration from footage of real jungle creatures in the use of key frame computer technology makes the animation more compelling than in any film I can remember. 

And the cast — the cast! — is phenomenal. Even The Big Short can’t boast such a talented and well-chosen group of actors as those who provide the voices of the jungle’s various beasts. Neel Sethi (as the only non-CGI element of the film) plays an excellent Mowgli, coping well with the demanding nature of the role and growing into his portrayal of an increasingly worldly ‘man cub’. Idris Elba shines as the fear inspiring and fire-damaged outcast Shere Khan; Ben Kingsley is authoritative as the fatherly Bagheera; and Scarlett Johansson and Lupita Nyong’o are beguiling in different ways in their respective roles as the devious Kaa and mother wolf Raksha. Christopher Walken also features as King Louis, the wise-guy ape (or gigantopithecus, to be precise).

But it is Bill Murray’s typically hilarious, fun, and warming turn as Baloo the sloth bear that takes top prize. With permanently semi-closed eyes and a constant craving for snacks (the reference is likely to go above younger viewers’ heads), Baloo gives Mowgli an important lesson in any coming of age tale: the value of taking it easy once in a while and enjoying the simple pleasures life has to offer. It’s hard to imagine a more fitting union of character and actor.

It’s Murray who gives us the best musical moment of the film, when Baloo breaks out into the timeless ‘The Bare Necessities’, a song that forms an indelible part of so many childhoods. Luckily, it’s done justice in a grin-inducing montage of Baloo and Mowgli enjoying the good life. ‘King of the Swingers’ has also been revised but is less convincingly executed by Walken, although serves well as part of the darker undertone of the remake. Overall, John Debney’s score mixes grandeur and nostalgia with aplomb.

The film is true to Rudyard Kipling’s original tale in many ways and is of course heavily inspired by, although does not follow exactly, the Disney original of 1967. Many of Kipling’s writings on colonialism and South Asia exhibit troubling views, and both his collection of stories and the original film, in having Mowgli return to the ‘man village’, can justly be accused of containing a questionable moral message: that people should stick to their own kind. Much of Kipling’s work is, undoubtedly, a prime example of Orientalism (the representation of Asia in a stereotyped, colonial way), despite the deep-seated love of India exhibited in books such as Kim. 

The charge of Orientalism will always have some weight against a film about a native boy in the Indian jungle, but any scent of a divisive, colonialist message has been lost in Favreau’s updated version. Shere Kahn’s worst crimes are his rejection of this: his hatred of the wolves’ acceptance of Mowgli as one of their own, his loathing of difference, and his ignorant insistence that animal and man should not mix. There are hints of a message about climate change embodied in the danger of fire—or ‘man’s red flower’, as the animals call it—that is never quite developed but leaves an impression nonetheless. The central message of this film, however, is found in the metaphor of the wolf pack: we are at our best when we work together, no matter how great our differences may be.

The Jungle Book is stunning, exciting, scary, and has an important idea at its core. But most importantly (this is a children’s film, after all), it’s fun.