Jungle Cruise

Disney adapted one of its oldest theme park attractions into a $200 million feature, and the finished product is candid about its origins: a 1910s adventure serial with a large budget and a fondness for puns. Jungle Cruise pairs Dwayne Johnson, as the riverboat skipper Frank Wolff, with Emily Blunt as Dr. Lily Houghton, a botanist chasing a petal reputed to cure any illness. Their expedition runs into a cursed conquistador (Edgar Ramírez), a German prince with a submarine (Jesse Plemons), and a boat, the La Quila, that leaks at a rate suggesting it was built to.

Jaume Collet-Serra, previously known for Liam Neeson thrillers such as Non-Stop and The Commuter, directs from a screenplay by Michael Green, Glenn Ficarra and John Requa. The film was shot largely in Hawaii, with Kauai and Oahu standing in for the Amazon, and at Trilith Studios in Atlanta, with London for the period sequences. James Newton Howard composed the score, released by Walt Disney Records on July 30, 2021.

Opening day-and-date in theaters and on Disney+ Premier Access, the film earned $220.9 million worldwide against a reported $200 million budget. A sequel was announced in August 2021 with Johnson and Blunt attached; as of 2026 it has no release date. Critics were divided, audiences less so, and the movie remains what it set out to be: a ride, not a film, as one reviewer put it. [edit]

The Spanish conquistador Don Lope de Aguirre (Edgar Ramírez) leads his men into the Amazon in 1556, searching for the Tears of the Moon, a petal said to cure any illness and lift any curse. They find the tree. The Puka Michuna, the indigenous tribe that guards it, slaughter most of the party. Aguirre and his surviving lieutenants are cursed instead of killed: bound to the jungle, unable to die and unable to leave, until the petals are returned to the tree.

London, 1916. Dr. Lily Houghton (Emily Blunt) has been dismissed by the botanical establishment for insisting that the Tears of the Moon are real. She is determined to prove otherwise, and her younger brother McGregor (Jack Whitehall), a dandy with a useful allowance, funds the expedition and comes along. Lily obtains an arrowhead that functions as a key to the tree's location. Prince Joachim (Jesse Plemons), a German aristocrat with a submarine, a private army and ambitions of his own, wants the petals too, and he wants the arrowhead first.

In the Amazon, the Houghtons hire Frank Wolff (Dwayne Johnson), a fast-talking skipper whose jungle cruises are staged: the dangers are fake, the animals are animatronic, and the passengers pay for the privilege. Frank knows the river better than anyone and intends to fleece his clients and abandon them upriver. The La Quila, his boat, is held together by paint and stubbornness. Before departure, the harbor master Nilo Nemolato (Paul Giamatti) reminds Frank of the money he owes, a debt that follows the expedition.

The journey upriver brings hostile wildlife, rapids, and a stop at the outpost of Trader Sam (Veronica Falcón), who knows more about Frank than she lets on. Prince Joachim's pursuit closes in. The cursed conquistadors appear as well, hunting the arrowhead for themselves, convinced that possessing it and the petals will finally release them. Lily's scientific idealism, Frank's concealed history and Joachim's imperial designs all point toward the same tree, and the film spends its second half moving them into position for the race to reach it.[edit]