The Jungle

Andrew Traucki – 2013 - Australia

I hate to simply repeat the conventional wisdom, but I don’t have much choice when I don’t disagree with it at all.  The plain fact is that The Jungle comes as a major letdown from director Andrew Traucki after his refreshingly modest but intense The Reef (2010).  Apart from simply not being anywhere near as good, Traucki missteps further by wading into the already overused and increasingly aggravating “found footage” genre, which is characterized most absurdly by characters’ unfailing expertise at keeping cameras pointed exactly in the right direction while fleeing for their lives in terror.  Here, an arrogant wildlife adventurer (in the vein of Steve Irwin) takes to the wilds of Indonesia in search of a large and endangered leopard.  The locals warn (as locals always do) of darker forces in the surrounding jungle, but the hero scoffs and proceeds to hack his way through the vines, followed closely by his faithful cameraman.  What they find instead of the leopard seems to be some sort of cryptozoological creature like Bigfoot or the chupacabra.  It’s hungry.  The scares are tepid and obvious.  The characters are unlikeable and unoriginal.  There are no new or interesting ideas or twists anywhere in the film.  A film like this could potentially be rescued by its camerawork and exotic locations, but I was never even slightly convinced that we were really in Indonesia at all, and I was genuinely floored to learn that it was indeed shot on location there.  It looks like it was filmed in the hills out behind someone’s suburban neighborhood.  It even ends exactly like all these movies do, with the monster/ghost/killer/whoever darting right into the camera while shrieking.  Lame but mostly just disappointing.