Scarlett Johansson seems to have ventured so far into her tech-saturated post-humanness that she’s come out the other side, back in nature. She’s been a clone, an alien, an operating system, and a person who can disappear into the space-time continuum by using 100 percent of their brain capacity; now, in the first trailer for Jon Favreau’s/Disney’s live-action The Jungle Book, you get to see her as a snake.
Despite Johansson’s more earthy role here, the fact that her sweetly menacing voice speaks the only words we hear throughout the trailer gives it an oddly Her-ish vibe. As Mowgli (Neel Sethi — the only actor who gets to sport his real face in the trailer) roams through the jungle, Johansson’s Kaa mutters invasively personal and seductive text to him — “Are you alone out here? What are you doing so deep in the jungle?” — her voice echoing as though still stuck in a computer. Meanwhile, Mowgli, who’s raised by wolves and flees his home due to the threat of the tiger Shere Khan, encounters creatures who “don’t exactly have his best interests at heart,” as well as those who do, like a surprisingly kind bear and paternalistic panther.
Though they never speak in the trailer, many of these CG animals happen to bear the distinct voices of Bill Murray (Baloo, the bear), Idris Elba (Shere Khan, the tiger), Ben Kingsley (Bagheera, the panther), Lupita Nyong’o (Raksha, an wolf) and Christopher Walken (King Louie, an orangutan). There’s also a hint, at the end of the trailer, of a new version of “The Bare Necessities” — Baloo’s song from the original animated movie, to be sung here by Murray.
The film will be out April 15, 2016. Watch the trailer:
Via /Film.