Not suitable under 5; parental guidance to 6 (scary scenes)
This topic contains:
Children under 5 | Not suitable due to scary scenes. |
Children aged 5–6 | Parental guidance recommended due to scary scenes. |
Children aged 7 and over | Ok for this age group. |
This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.
Name of movie: | Jungle Book, The (1967) |
Classification: | G |
Consumer advice lines: | The content is very mild in impact |
Length: | 78 minutes |
This review of the movie contains the following information:
Disney’s animated adventure film The Jungle Book opens with Bagheera the panther (voice of Sebastian Cabot) discovering a baby boy named Mowgli (voice of Bruce Reitheman) abandoned in the Indian jungle. Bagheera rescues the “man-cub” and takes him to a family of wolves, who adopt Mowgli into their pack.
Ten years later Mowgli, now a young boy well adapted to living life in the jungle, is still living with his wolf pack family. But when the tiger Shere Khan (voice of George Sanders), who has a hatred for humans, returns to Mowgli’s part of the jungle, Mowgli’s wolf parents decide that it is no longer safe for Mowgli to stay in the jungle and that Mowgli must be sent away to a human village. Feeling responsible for Mowgli, Bagheera volunteers to take him.
On the way to the village, Mowgli has a number of misadventures involving a hypnotic python named Kaa (voice of Sterling Holloway), a herd of elephants on a dawn patrol, a care free bear named Baloo (voice of Phil Harris), and a band of monkeys lead by an aristocratic orang-utan named King Louie (voice of Louis Prima).
Eventually Mowgli finds himself confronting Shere Khan the tiger.
Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.
Abandonment; family; jungle animals
Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.
Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.
For the most part, the film contains slapstick violence and mild accidental injury involving a variety of jungle animals. However, the film does contain a couple of scenes depicting some menace and peril and one scene at the end involving an intense fight between large jungle animals that may scare young children. Examples include:
Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.
In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of five, including the following:
Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.
Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.
None noted in the film, but plenty of associated merchandise.
There are some sexual references in this movie, including:
There is some nudity and sexual activity in this movie, including:
The film contains some mild humorous name calling that young children may imitate. Examples include:
The Jungle Book is a digitally restored version of the classic Disney family adventure. The film contains some catchy songs, great character voices and lots of humour and slapstick comedy. However, it does feature some menacing characters, scary scenes and one intense fight that may disturb young children. It may be therefore too scary for under 5s and parental guidance is recommended for 5 to 6 year olds.
The main message from this movie is that having friends and family is the most important thing in life. Many of the animals make sacrifices to either care for or protect Mowgli. Baloo the bear and Bagheera the panther are willing to sacrifice their lives to protect him.
Parents may wish to discuss Shere Kahn the tiger’s fear and hatred of humans. What made Shere Kahn fear them? Was his fear justified? Was this an accurate representation of how wild animals respond towards humans?
Tip: Leave out the first A, An or The
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Content is age appropriate for children this age
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