Based on a popular French TV series, the feature length Jungle Bunch (aka Les As de la Jungle) is the story of a crime-fighting penguin named Maurice who dresses like a tiger and his furry pals (including a daft gorilla and a lipstick wearing bat), who wants to defend their jungle home from evil koala Igor, who wants to destroy everything for no apparent reason.
With a rather confusing plot – the film makes no concessions to kids who haven’t seen the TV show – and a level of slapstick violence you wouldn’t expect from a film aimed at little kids (one character dies in a fire very early on and that’s just for starters), this is an odd movie that is even stranger due to the fact that some of the gags and jokes are clearly lost in translation from French into English.
It’s brightly animated, however, and moves along at a swift pace, so for kids who have seen the Madagascar movies over and over and want some more jungle adventure, and for fans of the TV series, this passes the time.
Is The Jungle Bunch suitable for kids? Here are our parents’ notes...
A character is killed in a forest fire early in the movie which may upset very young viewers.
There is quite a lot of slapstick violence, and a scene in which animals are imprisoned by the bad guy and his henchmen.
Very young viewers may find Igor the koala scary.
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