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Parents' Guide to

Jungle Master

By Barbara Shulgasser-Parker, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 8+

Forgettable animated adventure has lots of violence, peril.

Movie PG 2013 90 minutes
Jungle Master

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

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What's the Story?

As JUNGLE MASTER begins, Rainie (voiced by Victoria Justice) is excited to celebrate her 12th birthday with her mom (Jane Lynch). But her mom, a hardworking executive stuck solving workplace problems, doesn't even come home that night to the decorations and cake Rainie prepared for them. Angry and disappointed, Rainie runs away -- but straight into a dimensional portal that takes her to the jungle planet where her mom's corporation is, for undisclosed reasons, trying to extract a "new strain of DNA" from the local plant life. Rainie is chased by dinosaur-ish monsters and rescued by a young blue boy who looks a bit like Peter Pan. Blue (Josh Peck) is a Lumore who lives with Dr. Sedgwick (Christopher Lloyd), the human researcher he calls "Grandpa." Grandpa's been trying to extract DNA from the locals, and it's hard to tell if Grandpa is a good guy or a bad one. When his funder, Boss Cain (David Spade), who also owns Rainie's mom's company, comes to the planet to press the doctor for results, a battle ensues, unleashing giant robots, armed bodyguards, and a ruthless pursuit of DNA by any means necessary.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say: Not yet rated
Kids say: Not yet rated

This tepid animated adventure offers more questions than answers. What will the evil entrepreneur Boss Cain do with the harvested DNA? Jungle Master doesn't trouble itself with such details. As the movie's worst of several villains, he keeps shouting he's just trying to save the world, but we suspect that someone that cruel and power-hungry has other motives. We just don't know what they are, other than putting the film's heroes in jeopardy. The muddy motives take the air out of this wobbly, routine, by-the-numbers cartoon. Characters talk aloud to themselves to provide a running narrative of what they're thinking and doing, the kind of information that a better script and a defter creative team could've found a way to convey wordlessly. "Thank goodness I was able to get away from him!" Rainie says to no one as she temporarily evades an enemy.

The main premise is pretty shaky, too. Forgetting a birthday is one thing, but the action begins when a mother doesn't even call home -- all night! -- to let her 12-year-old know she isn't coming home from work. That's the scariest thing about the movie.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about how it would feel to be ignored by a parent. Do you think Rainie's mom was neglectful? Why, or why not?

  • Members of a group accuse others of "betraying their race." What do you think that phrase means?

  • The doctor apologizes for making a mistake that involved ignoring the importance of another living being. Do you think he deserved forgiveness? Why, or why not?

  • Why do some companies refuse to test products on animals? Do you think it is unethical to use animals for research? Why, or why not?

Movie Details

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