Any attempt at revisiting Disney's beloved animated take on Rudyard Kipling would have to be regarded as a daunting proposition. [...] voice casts don't get much better than the inspired grouping that was Phil Harris, Louis Prima, Sebastian Cabot, Sterling Holloway and J. Pat O'Malley, and those Sherman brothers tunes (not to mention Terry Gilkyson's "The Bare Necessities") packed plenty of bounce to the ounce. There's an assembly-line, direct-to-video feel about the whole production, from the barest thread of a story to the perfunctory visual characterizations to the virtual absence of anything resembling inventiveness.

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