The Jungle Book (franchise) The theatrical version of the film was released in France on February 5, 2003, and released in the United States on February 14, 2003. Also inspired by Rudyard Kipling's classic children's books, the film is a sequel to the 1967 animated musical film "The Jungle Book", and stars Haley Joel Osment as the voice of Mowgli and John Goodman as the voice of Baloo. Wild child Mowgli has grown fidgety with his life in the "man village", so he sneaks back to the jungle to be with his animal friends, like the beloved bear Baloo. Mowgli's disappearance, however, worries his
The Jungle Book and class are mapped out in the stories, contributing to "an imagining of Englishness as a site of power and racial superiority." Nyman suggested that "The Jungle Book"'s monkeys and snakes represent "colonial animals" and "racialized Others" within the Indian jungle, whereas the White Seal promotes "'truly English' identities in the nationalist allegory" of that story. Swati Singh, in his "Secret History of the Jungle Book", notes that the tone is like that of Indian folklore, fable-like, and that critics have speculated that the Kipling may have heard similar stories from his Hindu bearer and his Portuguese "ayah" (nanny) during