Critic Reviews

The fundamental intensity of Ghinsberg’s story is hard to totally squander. When it doesn’t give in to the desire to be a more traditional crowd-pleaser, Jungle provides a graphic and unvarnished account of a genuinely incredible story.

There’s not much new here, but it’s as engrossing as the better entries in this formulaic quest and that’s largely owing to [Radcliffe’s] charisma and focused self-martyrdom.

Jungle succeeds in communicating the young Israeli kid’s horrible situation, as well as the camaraderie between him and his new friends, but falls short when trying to visually explicate his mental state.

While the horror director successfully distills Ghinsberg’s spare prose into a succession of terrifying images, McLean can’t seem to help straying into the tackier elements of horror.

More time could have been spent developing the bond between the men, but ultimately this is quite gripping: a weepie bromance. You don’t see one of those every day.

Jungle eventually leads to an exciting survival story with an intense performance by Daniel Radcliffe and suspenseful scenes that might make you squirm. But it might not be worth the journey it takes to get there.

Overegged is the word – there was enough conviction in Radcliffe alone to pull the story through these straits.

Taut and rattling in setup, before losing its bearings in more ways than one as no end of jungle fever seizes Daniel Radcliffe’s agonized protagonist.

Madness is difficult to convey on screen, and less is often more. McLean opts for most, sacrificing Radcliffe performance — so alert and responsive that you can feel the life draining out of his body once the Amazon takes hold — at the altar of some empty affectations.

Daniel Radcliffe does what he can to elevate the survival story at the heart of Jungle, but the film's awkward pacing and over-reliance on cliche hold him back.