Jungle Cruise

Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, Jungle Cruise follows Dwayne Johnson’s sarcastic Frank Wolff as he agrees to ferry two passengers (Emily Blunt’s Lily and Jack Whitehall’s MacGregor) deep into the Brazilian Amazon. There’s ultimately little doubt that Jungle Cruise fares best within its briskly-paced and agreeably lighthearted opening stretch, as filmmaker Collet-Serra, armed with Glenn Ficarra, John Requa, and Michael Green’s screenplay, delivers a slick blockbuster that benefits from its adventure-focused atmosphere and exceedingly charismatic performances – with, in terms of the latter, Johnson’s thoroughly affable turn remaining an obvious highlight within the proceedings. It’s clear, then, that Jungle Cruise‘s downfall is triggered by an episodic midsection riddled with entirely underwhelming subplots and digressions (ie there’s just so much tiresome backstory for the film’s one-note villains), while the excessive use of CGI during the interminable, action-heavy third act ensures that the movie fizzles out to a rather astonishing degree – which does, in the end, confirm the picture’s place as a complete misfire that could (and should) have, with some serious streamlining, been so much better.

*1/2 out of ****