The first time I went to Disneyland, I was 32 years old. Jungle Cruise is a ride that many theme park lovers encourage first-timers to visit, so I waited in line for 45 minutes and was extremely underwhelmed. Thank goodness the new movie, starring Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Édgar Ramírez, Jack Whitehall, Jesse Plemons, and Paul Giamatti, is much more entertaining.
Jungle Cruise—directed by Jaume Collet-Serra from a story by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa and a screenplay from Michael Green, Ficarra, and Requa—is a live-action adventure based on the famous Disneyland attraction starring two of the most charismatic actors in the business: Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Emily Blunt. As entertaining as this film is, the script makes decisions that keep a good movie from becoming a great one.
Lily Houghton (Blunt) is an idealistic botanist looking for the “tears of the moon,” an ancient indigenous plant from Brazil with healing powers. Her goal is to get a petal from the tree in hopes of saving lives, so along with her brother Macgregor (Whitehall), she travels to South America with nothing but a sacred
