Jungle, what is based on a true and utterly insane story ends up as a mostly mediocre movie with poor direction and acting. I was looking forward to this, knowing Radcliffe can give a good performance, but even he couldn't save it.
Right out of the gate the directing has some b-movie qualities with very fake scenes and settings and somewhat awkward character interactions. At no point did I feel like we were in the ''real'' Bolivia. Second is the messy editing and poor framing most of the time, especially the rafting scenes and more action oriented scenes like climbing are big offenders, to my surprise I see this is a 2017 movie but it might as well have been made in 2007. It feels a lot more gimmicky than I'd like. It never grabbed me as a grounded and gripping survival story.
Acting, a major downfall for me again, pretty much all of the side characters are awful, except for Radcliffe and Russel, they're alright, everyone else gives awful accents and just poor emotional performances, Joel Jackson being the worst offender, sad because that character needed all the emotion and care in the world. Sadly it doesn't hit the mark and instead you're just happy he's out of the movie. Kevin's character was okay, but also lacks some spirit. Maybe it's also due to the writing, which is average and the directing which doesn't always show each character in the best light. But it was just underwhelming as a whole.
Towards the end, I started skipping a bit, I know this is pretty much the end for a movie when I do it. I rarely do, but my investment went into the negatives, I just wanted it to be over and we all know how it would end anyways.
Production value/practical FX, one point that deserves high praise, the ''gore'' and all of the nasty bits are properly nasty and well done. It makes those scenes pretty hard to watch. Make up, etc, all great. Reading the trivia, the lack of sweat on actors does seem funny, but it is another example of the lackluster directing.
Very forgettable.
