This New JUNGLE CRUISE Trailer Is Pretty Wild

Look, if you're not excited about another movie based on a Disney theme park ride, I can understand. Such projects rarely yield strong results, and a movie based on Disney's Jungle Cruise attraction - which opened all the way back in 1955 and is not what you'd call "a pulse-pounding thrill ride" - seems particularly ill-advised.

But take a closer look at the details: Jungle Cruise was co-written by Bad Santa's Glenn Ficarra & John Requa and Blade Runner 2049's Michael Green; it's directed by noted madman Jaume Collet-Serra (House of Wax, Orphan, The Shallows); it features Paul Giamatti playing a "crusty harbormaster", The Rock wearing a jaunty little cap, and - according to the just-released trailer, which you'll see in just a moment - Jesse Plemons attacking The Rock's boat with a submarine. On a river. Oh, and also, Emily Blunt's in it. 

Yes, it's another movie based on a Disney theme park ride. But it's also all of those other things, and we're not going to say no to any of those things.

Will Jungle Cruise be any good? There's no telling. Will it be memorably weird? With Jaume Collet-Serra at the helm, virtually anything is possible, and this trailer seems to indicate that there'll be at least some of that unmistakable Collet-Serra weirdness to these proceedings. At the end of the day, all we really want out of a Jungle Cruise movie is to not be bored out of our skulls, and it looks highly unlikely that'll be the case. This isn't one of our most anticipated movies of the summer, to be sure, but it does seem like a perfectly acceptable way to kill a few hours in a dark, air-conditioned movie theater while the summer sun rages away outside. We'll give it a shot, and we'll be crossing our fingers for as much of that Collet-Serra weirdness as possible.

Anyhoo, here's an official plot synopsis, for your records:

"Join fan favorites Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt for the adventure of a lifetime on Disney’s Jungle Cruise, a rollicking thrill-ride down the Amazon with wisecracking skipper Frank Wolff and intrepid researcher Dr. Lily Houghton. Lily travels from London, England to the Amazon jungle and enlists Frank’s questionable services to guide her downriver on La Quila—his ramshackle-but-charming boat. Lily is determined to uncover an ancient tree with unparalleled healing abilities—possessing the power to change the future of medicine. Thrust on this epic quest together, the unlikely duo encounters innumerable dangers and supernatural forces, all lurking in the deceptive beauty of the lush rainforest. But as the secrets of the lost tree unfold, the stakes reach even higher for Lily and Frank and their fate—and mankind’s—hangs in the balance."

And heeeere's a brand-new poster:

Jaume Collet-Sera's The Jungle Cruise hits theaters on July 24th, 2020.