jungle cruise submarine

Jungle Cruise

Joachim's U-boat

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Joachim's U-boat is a submarine that appears in the 2021 American fantasy adventure film Jungle Cruise , directed by Jaume Collet-Serra and based on Walt Disney 's eponymous theme park attraction . The U-boat is commanded by Prince Joachim of Prussia (Jesse Plemons), the main antagonist of the film, who pursues the protagonists Frank Wolff ( Dwayne Johnson ), Lily Houghton ( Emily Blunt ), and McGregor Houghton ( Jack Whitehall ) in their quest to find the Tree of Life in the Amazon rainforest during World War I.

Background [ ]

The U-boat is a German unterseeboot (undersea boat) of an unspecified model, presumably a Type U 31 or a Type U 43, which were both used by the Imperial German Navy during World War I. The U-boat has a dark gray hull with a red stripe and a black conning tower with a white cross. It is armed with two machine guns mounted on the port hole on the submarine's dorsal, as well as torpedoes and mines. The U-boat also has a periscope, a radio, and a sonar system.

The interior of the U-boat is decorated with various items that reflect Prince Joachim's personality and interests, such as paintings, books, maps, flags, medals, and a gramophone. The U-boat has a spacious cabin for Prince Joachim, as well as a smaller cabin for his loyal assistant Axel (Philipp Maximilian). The rest of the crew consists of several unnamed German sailors.

Role in film [ ]

The U-boat first appears in Porto Velho, Brazil , where Prince Joachim arrives to meet with Trader Sam (Veronica Falcón), a leader of a local tribe who knows the location of the Tree of Life. Prince Joachim offers her money and weapons in exchange for her cooperation, but she refuses and warns him that the jungle will not let him find the Tree. Prince Joachim then reveals his true motive: he wants to use the healing powers of the Tree to help Germany win the war and make his cousin Kaiser Wilhelm II proud of him. He also reveals that he has been tracking Lily Houghton, a British scientist who has stolen an ancient arrowhead that serves as a key to the Tree. He orders his men to capture Lily and her brother MacGregor, who have hired Frank Wolff, a riverboat captain, to take them to the Tree.

The U-boat follows Frank's boat, La Quila , into the Amazon River, where it encounters various obstacles and dangers, such as rapids, waterfalls, rocks, and hostile natives. Prince Joachim uses his machine guns, torpedoes, and mines to attack Frank's boat, but Frank manages to evade or counter his assaults with his wit and skill. Along the way, Prince Joachim also encounters Lope de Aguirre (Édgar Ramírez), a cursed Spanish conquistador who has been searching for the Tree for centuries. Aguirre offers to ally with Prince Joachim against Frank and Lily, but Prince Joachim declines and insults him.

The U-boat eventually reaches the location of the Tree of Life, which is hidden inside a cave that can only be accessed during a lunar eclipse. Prince Joachim arrives before Frank and Lily and uses explosives to blast his way into the cave. He then used his radio to contact Kaiser Wilhelm II and inform him of his success. However, he is confronted by Frank, who reveals himself to be another cursed conquistador who was once Aguirre's friend. Frank fights with Prince Joachim while Lily tries to reach the Tree before the eclipse ends. Prince Joachim gains the upper hand and shoots Frank several times, but Frank survives due to his immortality. Frank then pushes Prince Joachim into a pit of snakes, where he presumably dies.

The fate of the U-boat and its crew is unknown after Prince Joachim's death. It is possible that they escaped or were captured by Trader Sam's tribe or Aguirre's men.

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Jungle Cruise Cast: Where You’ve Seen The Actors Before

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After it was pushed back from its original October 2019 release date to July 2020 before being pushed back another whole year, the time has finally come that we get to see Dwayne Johnson visit " the backside of water ." In Jungle Cruise , based on the popular Disneyland attraction of the same name, The Rock plays a sea boat captain enlisted to help guide an eccentric scientist, played by Emily Blunt , on a quest to find the Tree of Life during World War I. While it is easy to tell that this is destined to be one of the biggest 2021 movies with such huge stars in the lead, there are many other big names in the Jungle Cruise cast to look forward to seeing.

Dwayne Johnson (Frank Wolff)

Playing a hero named Frank who runs a slightly sketchy river tour operation until he's hired by Emily Blunt ’s character for an entirely different purpose is The Rock. He first transitioned from wrestling to acting playing his father on That ‘70s Show before making his film debut in 2001’s The Mummy Returns as The Scorpion King.

He first became friendly with Disney with family films like The Game Plan before the Fast and Furious movies certified him as a franchise rejuvenator and box office draw. After the Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle star returns to the jungle again, he will re-team with Jungle Cruise director Jaume Collet-Serra for Black Adam (one of the most anticipated DC movies ), return to California for a Big Trouble in Little China sequel, and revisit Hawaii for Robert Zemeckis’ Kamehameha biopic , The King.

Emily Blunt (Dr. Lily Houghton)

It is actually surprising that it took until now for Dwayne Johnson and Golden Globe winner Emily Blunt (who plays Lily Houghton, a woman on a quest to find a mythical tree in the Amazon that can cure any ailment) to join forces. For one, she is also a Disney darling, with Mary Poppins Returns and others, and has led action-packed blockbusters like the A Quiet Place movies (directed by and co-starring her husband John Krasinski ).

The British beauty first got America’s attention with 2006’s The Devil Wears Prad , which led to an impressively versatile career, ranging from sci-fi thrillers like Looper to dark indie dramedies like Sunshine Cleaning to light rom-coms like The Five-Year Engagement with Jason Segel . Blunt does not seem interested in granting many fans’ wish to see her play Invisible Woman in the Marvel movies , but could follow Jungle Cruise by reprising her Edge of Tomorrow role if the long-awaited sequel ever happens , that is.

Jack Whitehall (MacGregor Houghton)

Playing the role of MacGregor Houghton, the brother of Lily who accompanies her on the voyage is Jack Whitehall, who may finally make a splash with American audiences by starring in Jungle Cruise . This is not to say, however, that the British comedian does not already have a following in the States, having starred in 2016’s Mother’s Day , the hit Amazon Prime original miniseries Good Omens in 2019, and The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (his first collaboration with Disney) a year earlier. Later in 2021, Whitehall will appear in the live-action Clifford the Big Red Dog movie and is slated to star in two very unique upcoming romance movies called Silent Retreat and Robots .

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Paul Giamatti (Nilo Nemolato)

As Nilo Nemolato, who manages the port where Frank keeps his boat, we have Paul Giamatti , who has been acting since the ‘90s, appearing in bit parts in movies like Jim Carrey’s The Truman Show and the Saving Private Ryan cast before he earned his first Golden Globe nomination for 2004’s Sideways , which made him a household name. He has since become an Oscar nominee for Cinderella Man , a Golden Globe and Emmy winner for HBO’s John Adams miniseries, a Marvel villain (Rhino) in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 , a shady record producer in the NWA biopic Straight Outta Compton , and even Santa Claus in 2007’s Fred Claus with Vince Vaughn.

Jungle Cruise marks Paul Giamatti's second collaboration with Disney after Saving Mr. Banks and his second collaboration with Dwayne Johnson after San Andreas from 2015. He. is also a series regular on Showtime’s Billions and will reportedly reunite with Sideways director Alexander Payne for The Holdovers .

Jesse Plemons (Prince Joachim)

Prince Joachim, the one who steals the arrowhead from Emily Blunt and attacks Dwayne Johnson's boat from a submarine in the Jungle Cruise trailer, is played by Jesse Plemons . He has has proved that he can play a good bad guy as Todd on the Breaking Bad cast , in one of the best Black Mirror episodes (“U.S.S. Callister”), in the dark comedy Game Night , Netflix’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things , and as a morally bankrupt FBI agent in Judas and the Black Messiah most recently.

Jungle Cruise could technically qualify as the latest of his multiple Disney projects, having appeared in Twentieth Century Fox’s Like Mike as a teen and Fargo - FX’s anthology series based on the 1996 Coen Brothers movie. The former Friday Night Lights cast member also worked with Steven Spielberg on Bridge of Spies , was directed by Martin Scorsese for The Irishman and the upcoming Killers of the Flower Moon , narrated Vice , and his role in Antlers (one of the most anticipated upcoming horror movies ) will finally hit the screen in October. 2021.

Édgar Ramírez (Aguirre)

Also playing one of the villains in Jungle Cruise , named Aguirre, is Venezuelan actor Édgar Ramírez, who has played everybody from Gianni Versace to the role of Bohdi in the remake of Point Break after breaking out in Hollywood in a small The Bourne Ultimatum part. This led to getting second billing in the possession thriller Deliver Us From Evil , the lead in sports biopic Hands of Stone , and a few Netflix movies, including 2017’s Bright and the family comedy Yes Day in 2021. Following Jungle Cruise (his second film with Emily Blunt after The Girl on the Train ) Ramírez will reunite with his Zero Dark Thirty co-star Jessica Chastain in Netflix’s The 355 and has joined the Borderlands cast for Eli Roth’s film adaptation of the popular video game series.

Jungle Cruise's Veronica Falcón in Queen of the South

Veronica Falcón (Trader Sam)

Portraying a gender-swapped version of Trader Sam - a classic character from the original Jungle Cruise attraction - is Veronica Falcón, who made her English-language debut in the 2007 thriller Not Forgotten years before starring alongside The Suicide Squad ’s Alice Braga on USA’s Queen of the South and on HBO’s Perry Mason series reboot later in 2020. The following year has been huge for the Mexican actress so far, from a small part on the Falcon and Winter Soldier cast , a large part on the Why Women Kill cast, and an appearance in the latest of the Purge movies , The Forever Purge . Falcón will next star on Ozark Season 4 , in The Starling alongside Melissa McCarthy and Timothy Olyphant, and Apple TV+’s Mr. Corman with creator and star Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Jungle Cruise's Andy Nyman in Ghost Stories

Andy Nyman (Sir James Hobbs-Coddington)

Another British actor who could likely call Jungle Cruise the most high-profile credit on his resume to date (at least to American audiences) is Andy Nyman, who previously worked with director Jaume Collet-Serra on the Liam Neeson action thriller The Commuter in 2019. Much earlier, he starred in the original Death at a Funeral from 2007 , played The Tumor in Kick-Ass 2 , and appeared on Netflix’s Peaky Blinders as Winston Churchill. The co-writer, co-director, and star of Ghost Stories - one of the most acclaimed anthology horror movies in recent memory - also played a Jail Guard in Star Wars: The Last Jedi , had a recurring role in Amazon’s series reboot of Hanna , and starred in the Academy Award-winning biopic Judy in 2019.

It looks like the Jungle Cruise cast may help drive Disney’s latest theme park attraction-based movie toward a treasure trove of riches.

CinemaBlend’s resident theme park junkie and amateur Disney historian, Dirk began writing for CinemaBlend as a freelancer in 2015 before joining the site full-time in 2018. He has previously held positions as a Staff Writer and Games Editor, but has more recently transformed his true passion into his job as the head of the site's Theme Park section. He has previously done freelance work for various gaming and technology sites. Prior to starting his second career as a writer he worked for 12 years in sales for various companies within the consumer electronics industry. He has a degree in political science from the University of California, Davis. Is an armchair Imagineer, Epcot Stan, Future Club 33 Member.

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A Real Jungle Cruise Operator Reviews Jungle Cruise

In Jungle Cruise , Disney’s latest adaptation of one of its theme-park rides, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson plays an inexplicably brawny skipper named Frank, whose love of bad puns belies the fact that he is cursed to be trapped for eternity atop the Amazon River. Much of the movie revolves around Frank’s ability to pop off dad jokes while operating a tourist jungle cruise while also low-key trying to find a mystical leaf that will allow him to finally die. It is two hours and eight minutes long, and one of its characters is a man made entirely of bees. Our critic Bilge Ebiri did not enjoy Jungle Cruise , calling it a “mealymouthed CGI panderfest” that hurled him deep into the pits of Herzogian existential despair.

While I respected and mostly agreed with Bilge’s review, I couldn’t help but wonder if our perspectives were flawed, seeing as neither of us had ever been employed as Disney Jungle Cruise operators. It’s an important and agreed-upon tenet of film criticism that all movies must be reviewed by real people who do the real jobs in those movies, or else the review doesn’t count (godfathers on The Godfather , tomb raiders on Tomb Raider , zookeepers’ wives on The Zookeeper’s Wife , etc.) With that in mind, I reached out to Steve Krupkin, a man who helmed the simulated riverboat ride in his youth and who is now my uncle, and forced him to pay $30 to watch Jungle Cruise on Disney+ during his vacation.

I wanted to know: Did this movie ring true to his experience? Did it capture some ineffable je ne sais quoi only known previously to the thousands of men and roughly three women who had taken up the esteemed mantle of Jungle Cruise skipper since the ride’s inception in the 1950s? Were the real Jungle Cruise jokes better or worse than the Rock’s? And also, were all of the Jungle Cruise skippers hooking up in the ’80s?

Do you want to be anonymous, or do you feel comfortable talking about your past as a Jungle Cruise skipper? However you want. It’s not on my LinkedIn, but it probably should be. It actually helped me get my first job. I wrote in my cover letter something like, “Just as I faced the challenges of the jungle, I could face the challenges in advertising,” or something stupid like that.

Okay, then let’s establish your credentials. How did you get the same job as the Rock in the 2021 Disney movie Jungle Cruise ? I was 21, and it was 1989. I got it as a summer internship. As part of the Walt Disney World Magic Kingdom College Program. MKCP, I think they called it.

What made you want to be a Jungle Cruise operator? What wouldn’t want to make you be a Jungle Cruise operator? The Jungle Cruise was one of the sought-after jobs. I had some friends that were working in fast food and other friends that went around with a dustpan and a broom and cleaned up. My roommate was a lifeguard, which was pretty cush. But in the hierarchy of Attractions jobs, Jungle Cruise was the cream of the crop.

Did you have to audition? How did you end up getting one of the best jobs? When you interviewed, I think you said what you wanted to do, or what you’d be open to do, and rank it, like “Attractions” or “Lifeguard” or “Food Service.” I definitely put Attractions at the top. And back then, there were only male Jungle Cruise skippers. If you were a dude, that gave you a leg up. Now, looking back, obviously, they saw that I had the ability to deliver dad humor, and they gave me the job because of that. That part of the movie was such a great homage to the job.

We’ll get into the puns shortly. But first tell me what your actual job title was. I think it was called Attractions cast member, but my actual title was Jungle Cruise skipper.

So basically the same title as the Rock. He and I have a lot of similarities.

You’re both dads. You’re both Jewish. Is he Jewish?

No. The only reason I didn’t think he was Jewish is because he’s too good of an athlete.

How similar was your day-to-day to the Rock’s day-to-day in this movie? I would say honestly, before he goes on the adventure-excursion, it was the same job. When he’s driving those people around and taking them through the jungle and activating the different things, making jokes about the “backside of water,” the big hippo … As a real Jungle Cruise skipper, you did the same thing: You drove this boat around; it only went forward and backward. You’d pretend you were steering it, but the wheel didn’t work. It was on a track. You controlled the speed. When you went over certain things, the elephants would spray you, or the hippo would come out. Remember how in the movie he chops a rope and stuff comes flying at them? He had the [early] version of the ride. By 1989, a lot of that stuff had been automated. But basically, it was the same job. And at the beginning, I don’t think he even has his gun loaded.

Wait, did you have a gun? A real gun. You had to clean it after work each day. It had blanks in it, but it was a real gun.

For what? To shoot the hippos. And to protect the guests.

Did you have the same outfit? I didn’t have that driving cap or whatever that is. I had a straw jungle cowboy hat and a polyester shirt, tan and brown, and polyester pants. It was in the summer, so temperature-wise, it was similar to the movie. It was 95 and humid every single day.

That sounds bad from a breathability perspective. Was it paid? Yes, I made $5 an hour. And they took your rent out of your pay. I think I netted, like, $95 a week.

You lived at Disney World? Yeah, in apartments. This really cool condo complex for 20-somethings. All the interns lived there. And there was a pool. It was like Club Med for working college students. Half were American students and the other half were foreigners who were working at Epcot.

Hmmm. So everyone was hooking up with each other? There was a lot of that. I didn’t fare as well as other skippers. There were a lot of short romances. Everyone was young and vibrant and having a blast and making five bucks an hour.

Let’s get to the puns. Was there a script you had to follow, or did you have the ability to improvise? SOP — standard operating procedure — was that you were trained on the actual script. But your trainer would pride himself on teaching you jokes that were not SOP. But when you came to the docks, you had to be careful that a supervisor didn’t hear you telling a non-SOP joke. You could get in trouble. But nobody ever did. There was a script, but I don’t remember really seeing it, just learning it from my trainers. And a lot of the puns in the movie were the same.

They were the same as the jokes you yourself actually made? Oh, yeah. The whole, “Look at that, I’m going to show you something you’ve never seen: the backside of water” thing … I didn’t think it was funny when I learned it, but it was funny that it was in the movie.

To be honest, I don’t get that joke. I don’t either. I didn’t get it when I was saying it. And the joke about “I get paid by the number of people I take out, not how many I bring back” — that was definitely one that I’d say. “I got fired from an orange-juice factory because I couldn’t concentrate,” that was in there. At the end, when he said, “You’re all outstanding in my boat; now I need you all out standing on the dock.” [ Laughs at own joke from 1989. ]

Did people in the ’80s laugh at these jokes? Oh, yeah. People thought you were so funny. Especially moms. “You were hilarious!” I know I’m on a bunch of people’s handheld video Disney World vacation videos. If they didn’t laugh, you’d tap the mic and go, “Is this thing on?”

How did you keep it fresh? How many times a day did you have to say these jokes? You’d do two trips in the front boat, two trips in the back boat, two trips off. Maybe I’d do, like, 20 trips around in a day. And by the end, your voice was shot. Although we went to bars every single night, so between the loud bars and that job, your voice was toast. You’d be there til 2 a.m. and then have to be at work at 7. Maybe sometimes I didn’t give my best performance early in the morning.

This sounds amazing and horrible. It was.

Did anything bad ever happen? Did anyone ever fall off the boat? Was anyone rowdy? I’m sure there were some hecklers. You could maybe jam someone’s foot between the boat and the dock. But there was this lore, like, “Nothing bad ever happens in the Magic Kingdom.”

Sometimes a real alligator would find its way into the park, and you had to be so careful, because kids would think they could go pet it.

Wait, you had real alligators infiltrate the Jungle Cruise? Well, this happened mostly on Tom Sawyer’s Ferry.

Did the boat ever break? The boat would break every now and again. This was also similar to the Rock — how he was always tinkering with his boat. It would stop and you’d have to have somebody come and tow you out.

Did you recognize at that time that the Jungle Cruise was racist? There was definitely some bad stuff … the “natives,” the headhunters. But back then, I don’t think we thought about it that way. It was Disney, it was the ’80s.

When did you realize it was racist? I definitely did later. But there were other rides, like Splash Mountain and its [ Song of the South imagery], where even back then, you were like, “That doesn’t seem quite right …”

Are you aware of or in a kind of secret society with the other famous Jungle Cruise skippers, like Kevin Costner? Apparently Steve Martin was a Jungle Cruise skipper. You should be interviewing him. [ Ed. note: This seems to be a myth. ] It’s nice to have a connection to him that way. And now I have one to the Rock. If there were a secret handshake, I’d give it to him when I saw him.

If the Rock had been one of your coworkers, would you have found him intimidating? Was there competition among the skippers? There were definitely factions. Like the Jets and the Sharks. Like, we were definitely loyal to our trainer and the other guys were loyal to theirs. There was a competition around who had the better jokes. But otherwise it was pretty idyllic, except that it was 90 degrees, and you were sweating and hungover, and it was racist.

Our film critic didn’t like the movie. What’s your official review? Hmmm. I wish I had seen it in a theater. Maybe if I’d seen it on a bigger screen, it would have been better. But I give them credit for the effort. It’s hard not to like the Rock and Emily Blunt. I get her confused with Olivia Wilde. I feel bad for Jason Sudeikis being dumped by Olivia Wilde. Anyway, if I weren’t a Jungle Cruise skipper, I’d give it a mid-50s on Rotten Tomatoes. But since I was … maybe they could have cut it down to an hour and 45 minutes. I don’t know who this movie was for. If you’re under 13, it would probably scare you. Maybe it’s for people between the ages of 13 and 13 and a half. I probably wouldn’t have plunked down $30 to watch that if it hadn’t been for this interview with you.

I appreciate that, as does Disney. Did it move you emotionally? I got a little sad when I thought the Rock was going to be a rock for the rest of his life. But then she brings him back. It reminded me of being young, being 21, when my only worry was, “What time am I getting off of work so I can go meet my roommate so we can go to the bar and get five drinks for $2 each?” Someday you’ll miss being young, Rachel.

Was there anything that felt off from the spirit of the Jungle Cruise to you? The submarine was too weird. That felt like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The Jungle Cruise was in Adventureland, and 20,000 Leagues was in Tomorrowland, or something like that. It didn’t feel like the spirit of the Jungle Cruise. And I don’t remember the Jungle Cruise being about trying to outrun a mean Nazi.

I don’t want to make the Rock mad. I’m sure he’ll be reading this. I’ll say this: I think he really made Jungle Cruise skippers proud with his ability to deliver corny jokes. He definitely paid incredible homage to the craft of Jungle Cruise skippers.

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Dwayne johnson and emily blunt in ‘jungle cruise’: film review.

The perennial Disneyland theme park ride goes the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' route with Jaume Collet-Serra's big-screen adventure, in which Amazon explorers encounter threats both human and supernatural.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

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Of all the longtime favorite rides of the Disneyland theme parks, the Jungle Cruise , introduced in 1955, is among the most enduringly captivating. Sailing on a 1930s British steamer down the major rivers of Southeast Asia, Africa and South America through lush vegetation, accompanied by a skipper with a weakness for bad puns while Audio-Animatronic animals pop up in the waterways or on the riverbanks, the quaint Adventureland attraction is the very definition of transporting. Those central elements survive in Disney’s big-screen offshoot, though just barely, given the writers’ assiduous efforts to drown them in overplotting.

Spanish director Jaume Collet-Serra is usually found putting Liam Neeson through his B-movie action-man paces, or, more memorably, pitting Blake Lively against a pesky shark in The Shallows . But family-friendly humor isn’t quite his strong point, and the absence of a light touch here means that even the teasing banter and sexual tension between appealing leads Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt is a bit stiff. By the time they start wrestling with 400-year-old undead conquistadors and an evil spawn of the German kaiser who navigates the Amazon in a submarine, you probably won’t much care if they find the elusive object of their expedition, let alone seal it with a kiss.

Full credits

Distributor: Disney/Disney+ Production companies: David Entertainment Company, Seven Bucks, Flynn Picture Co. Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Edgar Ramirez, Jack Whitehall, Jesse Plemons, Paul Giamatti, Veronica Falcón, Dani Rovira, Quim Gutiérrez Director: Jaume Collet-Serra Screenwriters: Michael Green, Glenn Ficarra, John Requa; story by John Norville, Josh Goldstein, Ficarra, Requa Producers: John Davis, John Fox, Beau Flynn, Dwayne Johnson, Dany Garcia, Hiram Garcia Executive producers: Scott Sheldon, Doug Merrifield Director of photography: Flavio Labiano Production designer: Jean-Vincent Puzos Costume designer: Paco Delgado Music: James Newton Howard Editor: Joel Negron Visual effects supervisors: Jim Berney, Jake Morrison Casting: Mary Vernieu, Marisol Roncali

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Jungle Cruise

Based on Disneyland's theme park ride where a small riverboat takes a group of travelers through a jungle filled with dangerous animals and reptiles but with a supernatural element.
1916. Dreaming about saving countless lives and having another adventure, the feisty English feminist and doctor of botany, Dr Lily Houghton, embarks on a peril-laden mission to change the world. Along with her fashionable brother, MacGregor, Dr Houghton enlists the help of the arrogant, wisecracking riverboat skipper, Captain Frank Wolff, to guide them through the serpentine Amazon River in La Quila, his swift wooden boat. Now, as the intrepid trio ventures deeper and deeper into the heart of an impenetrable green maze, searching for something that cannot be found, a centuries-old curse and the ruthless aristocrat, Prince Joachim, threaten to put an end to their ambitious plans. And, sooner or later, the jungle always wins. Is it true that the Spanish conquistador, Don Aguirre, was lost in the same God-forsaken part of the world? — Nick Riganas
In the 16th century, Spanish conquistadors travel to South America in search of the Tears of the Moon, a mythical tree whose petals can cure any illness, heal any injury, and lift any curse. After most of the men die in the jungle, the survivors are nursed back to health by a local tribe using the tree petals. When they refuse to reveal the location of the tree, the Spanish destroy the village, and as punishment are cursed to never die and never be able to leave sight of the river. In 1916, Dr. Lily Houghton and her brother MacGregor detail Lily's research on the Tears of the Moon to an association of English explorers, explaining that the petals could revitalize medicine and aid in the war effort. The Houghton's request access to an arrowhead recovered by Dr. Albert Falls that Lily believes is key to locating the tree. When the association denies their request, believing the tree to be a myth and a female scientist unqualified to join their ranks, Lily steals the arrowhead instead. She narrowly avoids Prince Joachim, a German aristocrat who also wants the arrowhead and the tree. In South America, Frank Wolff takes tourists on jungle river cruises, which he embellishes with fake dangers and corny jokes. When his boat engine is repossessed by businessman Nilo, he attempts to steal it back. Caught in the act by Lily, Frank pretends to be Nilo and arrogantly tells her that the Tears of the Moon is a myth and that she will not be able to handle the dangers of the jungle, but changes his tone when he notices that Lily is in possession of the arrowhead. Frank's deception is revealed with the real Nilo shows up, but Lily hires Frank anyway after he underbids Nilo and bravely fights off a wild jaguar attack. Frank, Lily, and MacGregor depart on Frank's boat but are almost intercepted by Nilo attempting to get his engine back, mercenaries hired by Joachim to retrieve the arrowhead from Lily, and Joachim himself attacking in a German submarine. After they make their mistake, it is revealed that the attacking jaguar was actually Frank's pet Proxima, and Lily wonders if Frank can be trusted. Joachim locates the cursed conquistadors, whose bodies have turned to stone due to them traveling too far from the river, and have been infested over time by tree roots, snakes, and insects. Joachim frees them by diverting the river, and offers to help them break the curse if they help him to retrieve the arrowhead. As Frank, Lily and MacGregor continue down the river they become closer. MacGregor reveals to Frank that he was nearly disowned by his family due to his homosexuality, but Lily stood by him. Breaking into Frank's cabin, Lily finds photos and drawings of new inventions such as the automobile, but also discovers drawings of the arrowhead and research on the Tears of the Moon. Lily accuses Frank of wanting the tree for himself, but he explains he gave up searching for it a long time ago and believed it couldn't be found. They are attacked by a tribe of "cannibals" who demand the arrowhead, but this is revealed to be another deception by Frank working with a friendly tribe. Frank apologizes and says he was unable to call off the plan, but Lily rebuffs him. Trader Sam, the tribe's female leader, translates the writing on the arrowhead, revealing the location of the tree, and that it only blooms under a blood moon. The conquistadors attack and manage to take the arrowhead; Frank recovers it and gives it to Lily but is stabbed through the chest with a sword and falls to his death. Lily runs away from the river so that the Spaniards cannot follow her. The next morning, Lily discovers that Frank has miraculously survived. He reveals that his real name is Francisco, and he is actually one of the cursed conquistadors, unable to die or leave the river. The expedition to find the tree was originally a noble one to save the leader's sick daughter, but when the natives were attacked by the Spaniards, Frank switched sides to help the villagers. After years of fighting, Frank trapped the others in a cave away from the river. He then spent time searching for the tree to lift his own curse, but had been unable to find it without the arrowhead. An injured MacGregor stays behind with Trader Sam while Lily and Frank make the final journey to the tree. MacGregor is captured by Joachim and forced to reveal the location of the tree. Frank, Lily, the Germans, and the Spaniards all converge on the tree, which begins to bloom under the blood moon. The moon passes quickly as they fight, and Lily is only able to recover one petal. MacGregor kills Joachim, and Frank crashes his boat to block the river, turning himself and the other Spaniards into stone. Lily uses the petal to revive Frank and break the curse, only afterwords discovering that due to a shift in the moonlight there is one petal left for Lily's research. Back in London, the society has offered full membership to Lily, which she rejects. She shows Frank London and gives him his first driving lesson in her automobile as well as delivering a corny joke herself.

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‘Jungle Cruise’ film review: a classic summer blockbuster souped up for the modern age

Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt are the perfect pair to lead this rollercoaster of maximalist adventure

R emember what blockbusters were like before Marvel ? When heroes flew biplanes instead of supersuits? When baddies shot revolvers instead of magic finger sparks? If you grew up with swashbucklers like Raiders Of The Lost Ark , Romancing The Stone or The Mummy you’ll find so much to love in Jungle Cruise – a rollicking summer holiday classic with an old soul and a messy modern edge.

Picking up the slack left by whatever happened to the Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise (*cough* Johnny Depp *cough*), Disney ’s latest ride-to-film adaption follows almost the exact same formula as 2003’s Curse Of The Black Pearl – mixing up old-fashioned matinee charm with a whole lot of supernatural CG schlock.

If you haven’t been on the original ride at Disneyland you haven’t got much catching up to do. As old as the first park itself, Disney’s 1955 river outing is a slow colonial cruise that floats guests past a handful of quaint animatronic jungle scenes (squirting elephants, snapping crocodiles and racist stereotypes) while a real-life “skipper” narrates everything with an ad-libbed script of intentionally bad animal puns. Is that enough to hang a movie off? Of course not. But throw in a few mad German submarine captains, an army of zombie conquistadors made out of bees, and a bizarrely out of place Metallica track and you’ve got yourself a modern maximalist blockbuster wearing handsome old-timey threads.

Here the skipper is Dwayne Johnson – jaded steamboat captain Frank Wolff – who reluctantly agrees to drive plucky English scientist Dr Lily Houghton (Emily Blunt) and her posh brother MacGregor (Jack Whitehall) up the Amazon in 1917 to find a glowy flower MacGuffin that has something to do with ancient curses and eternal life. The plot gets thicker when Prince Joachim (Jesse Plemmons) joins the chase in a giant U-boat, and thicker still when magic moon water reanimates a vengeful gang of dead 16th Century Spanish zombies led by Édgar Ramírez’s “Aguirre” (always good to find a Werner Herzog in-joke buried in a Disney film…).

Jungle Cruise Jack Whitehall Emily Blunt

If the plot sounds messy, everything else in Jungle Cruise stays satisfyingly clean-cut – starting with the perfect pairing of Johnson and Blunt. Doing his best to squeeze into the mould of classic Hollywood heroes like Humphrey Bogart and Harrison Ford, Johnson finds a role that fits his star power perfectly (despite looking more like he’s got protein shake in his hipflask instead of whiskey). Better still, Blunt stands even taller – delivering twice the sass and punching just as many snakes/cannibals/zombies to give us a new hero that’s somewhere between Indiana Jones and Katherine Hepburn.

And then there’s Whitehall’s endearingly annoying fop (managing to handle one of Disney’s most high-profile gay characters with real sensitivity); Plemmons’ deranged German cartoon stiff; a pet CG jaguar who understands English; and a raft of big, exciting action scenes that play like grand theme park stunt shows. There’s so much packed into Jungle Cruise that it’s easy to get lost in – and a bizarre late twist threatens to capsize an already well overladen boat – but director Jaume Collet-Serra ( Unknown , Run All Night , The Shallows ) mostly keeps things grounded in such a fine old spirit of adventure that it’s impossible not to enjoy the ride.

Glowing with golden-age romance and buzzing with Marvel-age pizzazz, Jungle Cruise is everything summer blockbusters used to be and a whole lot they never were. Is this the start of a whole new Pirates -style franchise? Let’s hope so.

Director: Jaume Collet-Serra
Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Jack Whitehall
Release date: July 30 (in UK cinemas)

Review: 'Jungle Cruise' is made from spare parts of better movies but kids will love it

The movie is based on a Disneyland ride that's been operating since 1955.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Emily “millennial Mary Poppins” Blunt knock themselves out in “Jungle Cruise” to keep kids wowed with excitement as everything from headhunters to snapping piranhas go on the attack.

Jungle Cruise

Join Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt for the adventure of a lifetime on Disney's "Jungle Cruise," a rollicking thrill-ride down the Amazon.

The movie, now playing in theaters and streaming on Disney+ Premier Access , is based on a Disney theme-park ride that’s been at it since -- wait for it --1955. That was just a few years after Walt Disney himself watched Humphrey Bogart skipper Katharine Hepburn down river in “The African Queen” and felt inspired to build the still-thriving attraction.

PHOTO: Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt in "Jungle Cruise," 2021.

“Jungle Cruise” is nowhere near the league of that film classic. It’s a goofball throwaway that just wants to give family audiences a thrill ride down the Amazon, and it begs to be compared with another Disney excursion, “Pirates of the Caribbean.”

And that’s the problem.

“Jungle Cruise” borrows so heavily from “Pirates,” not to mention “The Mummy” and the incomparable “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” that it’s basically a knockoff. Johnson is a musclebound charmer, but small potatoes next to Johnny Depp, who swanned so deliciously through the role of pirate Jack Sparrow that he won an Oscar nomination.

MORE: Review: 'In the Heights' pure unleashed joy grabs you and never lets go

Acting awards are not in the cards for “Jungle Cruise ,” though that’ll be no big whoop to preteens who manage to circumvent the film’s inexplicable PG-13 rating. Set in 1916, two years into World War I, the movie is built to distract young’uns with all-stops-out special effects.

Johnson plays Frank Wolff, the captain of a ramshackle riverboat who offers the cheapest jungle cruises in Brazil -- plus a nonstop flow of groan-worthy puns.

“I used to work in an orange juice factory, but I got canned,” Wolff says at one point.

MORE: Review: 'F9: The Fast Saga' is the biggest, baddest popcorn movie of the summer

Blunt has it worse. As British scientist Lily Houghton, a female Indiana Jones who shocks society by wearing pants, she is stuck in an exposition dump of an opening scene about why Houghton and her fussy brother, MacGregor (Jack Whitehall), need to chug down the Amazon.

Houghton is in search of flower petals from an ancient tree, called Tears of the Moon, which can only be found after Houghton steals a sacred arrowhead containing a map that will lead her to there. Even a single, falling petal is said to cure any illness or break any curse.

Download the all new "Popcorn With Peter Travers " podcasts on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Tunein , Google Play Music and Stitcher .

It’s all just an excuse for director Jaume Collet-Serra, who pitted Blake Lively against an angry shark in “The Shallows,” to lead Wolff and Houghton through a series of rousing perils. Houghton's brother doesn’t do much, though his coming-out to Frank would have raised eyebrows a century ago.

Wolff and Houghton interrupt their budding romance to fight off Joachim (hammed to the hilt by Jesse Plemons), a mad German prince in a submarine, and Aguirre (Edgar Ramirez), a Spanish conquistador who’s been undead for 400 years and looks like it.

Young audiences may go “ewww” at Wolff and Houghton's awkward smooching, but they’ll perk up at their near-death experiences in treacherous rapids and with poison snakes. The real scene-stealer is a photorealistic jaguar named Proxima, who becomes everyone’s favorite pet.

“Jungle Cruise” is made up of spare parts from better movies and at over two-hours in length, it’ll be tough on short attention spans. On the plus side, it is way better than “Haunted Mansion” and “Tomorrowland,” other Disney rides that morphed into movies.

Amazingly, Johnson and Blunt still sell it. He calls her “Pants” and she dubs him “Skippy,” nicknames they both hate. But their natural warmth as performers humanize characters built from flimsy cardboard.

“Jungle Cruise" may be dim, dopey and derivative, but the kids will love it, and like the Metallica song in the film, “nothing else matters.”

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Jungle Cruise review: "Goes all out to entertain, but also exhausts"

GamesRadar+ Verdict

An action vehicle that, in trying to do it all, does a little too much; Johnson and Blunt keep it afloat.

Why you can trust GamesRadar+ Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about our reviews policy.

Raging rapids. Zombie Conquistadors. CG animals and a German U-boat. Oh, and let’s not forget Paul Giamatti with a ripe Italian accent. There’s a lot to take in on Disney ’s Jungle Cruise – so much so, in fact, you may need to have a quiet lie-down afterwards.

With its stunts, spectacle and brazen steals from the Raiders , Pirates and Mummy series, Jaume Collet-Serra’s Amazonian adventure certainly goes all out to entertain. Yet it also reaches a point where it becomes exhausting. There are so many obstacles between river-boat captain Frank (Dwayne Johnson), anthropologist Lily (Emily Blunt), and the eternal-life-giving petals they’re questing after that you get little time to take stock, take a breather, and take in the scenery.

There isn’t much room for romance, despite a few attempts to engineer one between Johnson’s opportunistic skipper and Blunt’s determined academic. Thankfully – and unsurprisingly – the stars acquit themselves well when it comes to the physical demands of the mission, running, jumping, dangling, and zip-lining with gusto.

Attempts at comedy prove rather hit and miss, for all Jack Whitehall’s striving to provide laughs as Lily’s pompous but impractical brother MacGregor, who’s also on board for the petal quest.

But before any sort of goal is reached, there’s a sizeable slab of back story to get through: the undead curse afflicting Edgar Ramirez’s vengeful Spanish explorer necessitates not one but two extended flashbacks. Meanwhile, screenwriters Glenn Ficarra, John Requa and Michael Green go to somewhat convoluted lengths to ensure the dart-shooting natives and cannibal headhunters encountered en route are wily role-players in on the joke. More successful – and succinct – is the takedown of sexism, with London’s crusty boffins getting short shrift for not allowing Blunt to join their ranks.

Like the surfeit of suitcases MacGregor totes around with him, there’s a lot of baggage for what is essentially a theme-park-ride writ large. Small wonder, then, that it’s when the focus is at its narrowest that the movie is most effective: during an African Queen-style plunge down the aforementioned rapids, for example, or a set-piece where Johnson has a barroom brawl with a snarling jaguar.

Scenes like these have a clear sense of jeopardy, upping the fun factor and bringing Jungle Cruise closer to the adventure templates on which it’s modelled. Oh, and if you think Giamatti’s Italian accent is over the top, wait until you hear the one Jesse Plemons sports as the submarine-sailing Prince Joachim.

Jungle Cruise is in cinemas and available on Disney Plus via Premier Access from July 30. For more, check out the best movies on Disney Plus right now.

Neil Smith is a freelance film critic who has written for several publications, including Total Film. His bylines can be found at the BBC, Film 4 Independent, Uncut Magazine, SFX Magazine, Heat Magazine, Popcorn, and more.

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Jungle Cruise is one of the only movies to nail the feeling of a specific theme-park ride

It’s harder to get a ride movie right than you might imagine

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There are enough theme-park-based movies to make up a ranked list , but the way different movies handle the ride question varies drastically. Pirates of the Caribbean didn’t acknowledge much about the ride it was based on, and many don’t even realize the ride came decades before the movie. In Tomorrowland , by contrast, characters outright reference Disney. Jungle Cruise does include many references to the ride, but more importantly, it captures the specific feeling and energy of the attraction. It’s one of the few ride-based films that doesn’t just feel gratuitous.

The Jungle Cruise ride sits in the Adventureland portion of Disneyland, Magic Kingdom, Tokyo Disneyland, and Hong Kong Disneyland. Its first iteration debuted with Disneyland in 1955, and while each park has slight variations on the actual route involved (with the Hong Kong version culminating in a battle between jungle gods), the premise is pretty much the same: Guests get on a boat that’s supposedly cruising down various famous rivers, from the Nile to the Amazon, and watch some animatronic animals while a skipper narrates the journey.

The ride isn’t a serious nature tour — it’s about 10 straight minutes of intentionally horrible, corny puns and gags. The Hong Kong version is more serious, keeping in line with the ride’s original concept of an informative animal tour, but the other versions of the ride are notable for just being one extended Dad joke. The exact gags vary from ride to ride, but there are some recurring classics.

For instance, after pointing at a large rock, the skipper will sometimes say, “This formation on the right is actually sandstone. Most people take it for granite. It’s one of our boulder attractions here in the park.”

“Take as many pictures as you’d like,” they might also say, when encountering some elephant animatronics. “They have their trunks on!”

And a favorite of mine, when going under a water fixture : “Now for the moment you’ve been waiting for, the eighth wonder of the world: It’s the backside of water!”

Jungle Cruise the movie is an archaeological adventure that taps inspiration from 1999’s The Mummy and Indiana Jones alike. But what makes it stand out is how it captures the ride’s zany energy — this isn’t a serious movie, even if it does have some serious moments, thanks in part to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s character. The Mummy also has goofy moments — Evelyn proudly declaring she is going to kiss Rick, then passing out , for instance — but there is a specificity to the silliness of Jungle Cruise that’s straight out of the original attraction. No one goes on the Jungle Cruise ride to seriously learn about animals or be swept away to another world. (The fact that the river boat jumps seamlessly from the Nile to the Amazon ruins that illusion a little.) They go on it for the terrible jokes, the fast-talking skippers, and the janky animatronics.

frank in a hotel bar, arms outstretched looking cocky

When it comes to adapting theme-park attractions, filmmakers face the unique challenge of trying to adapt with no tangible plotlines or characters. Sure, there’s Madame Lenora in The Haunted Mansion , or the bears of The Country Bears , but they don’t come with motivations or goals. The challenge isn’t in translating an existing story, it’s in evoking a specific feeling, created by the atmosphere of the ride and the subtler storytelling woven into the attraction. Pirates of the Caribbean , with its darkened waiting area in a stone-wall fortress, is going to elicit different emotions than the bright, goofy Jungle Cruise, even though they’re neighboring attractions.

It makes sense that in addition to capturing the general Adventureland vibe — exploring jungles, encountering dangers, and running into wild animals — the movie also completely embraces the goofiness. At first, that might seem like a stunt. Boat captain Frank (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) is introduced while giving some tourists a ride, where he’s rigged up makeshift contraptions to give the guests little thrills, so he can rake in more tips. He even finesses some falling water to squeeze in that beloved “backside of water” joke .

But it goes beyond that one scene. Throughout the movie, Frank continues to make these dumb jokes. The plot elements are over the top, be it German aristocrat Prince Joachim (Jesse Plemons) charging through a small dock with a giant submarine, or Frank keeping a trained jaguar below deck. The perils that Frank, adventurous botanist Lily (Emily Blunt), and her stuffy brother McGregor (Jack Whitehall) encounter on their adventure, like the intense rapids or undead conquistadors, aren’t lifted directly from the ride, but feel like they could seamlessly be added to it in some form.

For the filmmakers, this fidelity to the ride also apparently meant acknowledging some of the attraction’s uncomfortable past. A number of Disney attractions that incorporate controversial elements have faced a reckoning in recent years. Jungle Cruise also has the added burden of an entire genre full of outdated tropes . The way the filmmakers handle all that is a mixed bag: On one hand, the fact that the indigenous people of the Amazon are Frank’s friends and not faceless adversaries improves on the ride’s antiquated imagery. On the other, why reference an outdated character like Trader Sam (who has been retired from the parks entirely) if she’s still just going to be a one-note plot element?

But overall, Jungle Cruise pulls off that formidable feat of translating one kind of experience into another form of media. Unlike Tomorrowland , which was conceived as a gritty dystopia (even if it ends on a hopeful note) and belies the spirit of the actual Tomorrowland area of the parks, which have always been about a bright, beautiful tomorrow , Jungle Cruise follows in the footsteps of Pirates of the Caribbean . The filmmakers tap into the feeling of the ride — cheesy and unbelievable for Jungle Cruise , eerie with a smidge of sly fun for Pirates — to adapt that particular feeling of sitting on a boat, listening to a skipper tell rapid-fire bad jokes, and feeling just the vaguest sense of imaginary threat from the plastic animals above.

Jungle Cruise is available on Disney Plus with Premier Access now.

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Small Details You Missed In Jungle Cruise

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Emily Blunt in Jungle Cruise

One of the original Disneyland rides finally has a movie to its name. "Jungle Cruise," starring Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt , is the adventure-filled big-screen adaptation of the attraction that boasts more than 60 years of corny jokes and skipper-led boat rides through a campy, animatronic-filled jungle.

At its heart, the Jungle Cruise ride is about bringing the wonders of the world's rivers and jungles to Disney parks' visitors. Passengers of boats named after famous rivers (Amazon Belle, Nile Princess, Suwannee Lady, etc.) get to see animatronic exotic animals and plant life from around the world, all in one place and under 10 minutes.

Jungle Cruise has been a beloved Disneyland attraction since day one, and is one of the few original rides from opening day in July 1955 that's still operating. There have been some major changes to the original Jungle Cruise ride over the years, including injecting the journey with a lovable stream of silly, punny jokes from the skippers and ridding the ride of racially insensitive and outdated imagery.

"Jungle Cruise" the movie showcases a spin on the spirit of the ride with a nostalgic riverboat adventure in the vein of "Pirates of the Caribbean," "Indiana Jones," and "The Mummy." Johnson and Blunt star as skipper Frank Wolff and Dr. Lily Houghton, respectively, on a journey down the Amazon river in search of an ancient healing tree that purportedly holds the power to change modern medicine forever. Of course, there are some nefarious characters they meet along the way who are also after the tree's petals — called "tears of the moon" — including a German prince (Jesse Plemons) and a group of tropical zombie conquistadors led by Aguirre (Édgar Ramírez).

As a movie based on an attraction in Disneyland, "Jungle Cruise" is chock full of Easter eggs and other small nods to the ride's Adventureland home. Here are some you may have missed.

Dr. Albert Falls

A fictional character in the Jungle Cruise/Adventureland universe, Dr. Albert Falls was introduced in the attraction as a joke — the namesake of the famous Schweitzer Falls, which he "discovered."

Albert Falls' characterization grew with the expansion of the Jungle Cruise backstory in 2015. Now, Albert's books and other items found on his travels are featured on shelves in the Skipper Canteen restaurant, and there's a bronze bust of the famed fictional explorer in Trader Sam's at the Disneyland Hotel.

In the "Jungle Cruise" film, Dr. Albert Falls is an offscreen character whose travel documents, maps, and an arrowhead are sought after by Blunt's Dr. Lily Houghton and Plemons' Prince Joachim in their search for the coveted healing tree. In the beginning of the movie, Lily breaks into and snoops around an English archaeological society's archives and finds the arrow she's looking for inside a crate labeled with "Dr. A. Falls." Albert Falls is also briefly mentioned a couple of other times in the film when Lily and Frank are discussing the exploration of the Amazon and the search for the "tears of the moon."

Jungle Navigation Company Ltd.

Founded by the aforementioned Dr. Albert Falls, the Jungle Navigation Company Ltd. is a fictional business set within the Adventureland and Jungle Cruise world of Disney parks. It's the parent company and operator of the Jungle Cruise tours of the world's rivers and also boasts the popular Skipper Canteen mess hall-style eatery. The company was introduced to Disneyland's and Magic Kingdom's Adventureland as part of updates to the parks in the 1990s.

The Jungle Navigation Company's Skipper Canteen menu is also full of nods to the Jungle Cruise attraction, including dishes named after Albert Falls and the attraction's boats. There's also a "Not Piranha" sustainable fish dish, which is made all the more funny after seeing Frank serve up fresh piranha in the "Jungle Cruise" movie.

Also in the film, a sign bearing the Jungle Navigation Company Ltd. logo is seen at the docks, where harbormaster Nilo Nemolato (Paul Giamatti) manages a fleet of river boats. Unlike Albert Falls, Nilo is a crusty, sunburned businessman — a memorable tertiary antagonist to whom Frank owes money.

Rosita the cockatoo

Fans of Disneyland's Enchanted Tiki Room were likely thrilled to see a brief but memorable "Jungle Cruise" cameo by Rosita the cockatoo.

The white-feathered Rosita is one of the "showgirl birds" who appear in the attraction perched on a mobile and singing "Let's All Sing Like the Birdies Sing." However, Rosita's spot on the mobile is empty because she left the group for adventures elsewhere. She now inhabits various spots around Disneyland, including the Tropical Hideaway and a riverside cage on the Jungle Cruise attraction.

In the "Jungle Cruise" film, Giamatti's character, Nilo, has a pet cockatoo named Rosita, who repeatedly squawks the memorable line "Frank owes me money" after Lily and Frank break into Nilo's office. In press notes, Disney said the Moluccan cockatoo's real name is Lover Girl and was one of Giamatti's favorite co-stars — in fact, it was actually Giamatti's idea to include a cockatoo as his character's sidekick.

The Backside of Water

It's the eighth wonder of the world and one of the greatest continuous jokes in theme park ride history: the backside of water. Jungle Cruise ride fans will laugh at this joke no matter how many times they've heard it and seen the other side of the famous Schweitzer Falls. Boat skippers tell passengers they like to call it "O2H."

In the "Behind the Attraction" series on Disney+, imagineers behind the Jungle Cruise ride and some longtime skippers said the backside of water joke is an essential part of the experience. If the joke isn't told, guests will remind the skippers of their misstep.

Likewise, including the backside of water joke was a must for the "Jungle Cruise" film. It was featured prominently in the first trailer for the film with Johnson proclaiming to his passengers, "Ladies and gentlemen, the moment you've been waiting for ... the backside of water." That joke, and all the others Frank deadpans, elicit groans and eye rolls from the tourists.

In a similar nod to the human-made river cruise at Disneyland, the character Frank is shown to have rigged many of the tricks in the water and along the shore to give his boat tour a more adventurous feel. To create the backside of water, he put together a system of water troughs and pulleys to produce a small waterfall at the best moment to deliver the one-liner.

All the puns

The Jungle Cruise ride we know and love today isn't the same one that ferried passengers along the world's rivers on Disneyland's opening day in 1955. For almost a decade, nature and wildlife education was the focus of the original Jungle Cruise attraction. The corny "dad jokes" and dry humor didn't make it into the ride until the 1960s. Alongside the backside of water, skippers now make jokes about a group of lions eating a zebra "on the rocks" and sharing the meal "with pride." There's also the Nile crocodile named Ginger who ... snaps. The skippers call her "one tough cookie."

Johnson's character Frank really leans into the punny skipper role in "Jungle Cruise." Kicking off a spiel of hilarious and cheesy puns, he points out a pair of toucans beak-wrestling in a nearby tree, noting "only two can play." When he gestures to some sandstone rocks, Frank says "some people take them for granite" one of his "boulder attractions." As Frank continues, his audience's groans and eye rolls grow in intensity. He even prompts a silent "wow" from one passenger after saying he got "canned" from his previous job at an orange juice factory because "I couldn't concentrate."

Later in the movie, when Frank, Lily and McGregor (Jack Whitehall) are being taken to the village of native "headhunters" (really Frank's hired performers), Frank says it's not a great place to "be headed."

Animatronic Hippos

The Jungle Cruise wouldn't be the Jungle Cruise without its animatronic animals, especially the hippos. In the Disneyland ride, the boat slowly moves through the hippo pool while the skipper tells the passengers to stay still so as not to rock the boat and disturb the massive animals. At one point, the skipper "fires" a fake pistol to scare some of the hippos away from the boat.

A brief but similar scene happens in the "Jungle Cruise" movie. As Frank narrates the many ways the Amazon jungle has killed previous explorers — "everything you see in the jungle wants to kill you ... and can" — the boat rumbles past a stationary fake hippo protruding from the water. Then, as Frank is activating a bunch of his tricks to entertain the passengers, he uses a pistol kept near the boat's wheel to fire at a rope and unleash the mechanical roaring hippo.

Hippos aren't native to the Amazon region — a fact pointed out by a young girl on the boat, whom Frank shushes — so they aren't seen again in the rest of the film. There are, however, about 80 hippos living around Colombia's Rio Magdalena. These hippos are the descendants of the "cocaine hippos" owned by drug lord Pablo Escobar, who brought them to the country in the 1980s.

At the beginning of 2021, the Jungle Cruise ride received some major storytelling updates to get rid of "negative depictions of native people," which included getting rid of the unofficial Jungle Cruise mascot, the Trader Sam animatronic. Though Trader Sam had different animatronic iterations in Disneyland and Magic Kingdom, the character was described by critics as a racist caricature of Indigenous African peoples.

Trader Sam got another revamp in the "Jungle Cruise" movie. In the film, Veronica Falcón portrays Trader Sam as the leader of the tribe of Indigenous people who guard the healing tree. She makes several quips about "working" with Frank in playing outdated stereotypes of native peoples for his river cruise story and how she makes money off of colonial notions of her people.

The portrayal of Trader Sam and her people doesn't always hit the nail on the head when it comes to reimagining the character. There is a moment when Trader Sam dons Lily's brother McGregor's top hat in a small nod to the Magic Kingdom version of Trader Sam, who's not only holding several shrunken heads but also wearing one as a necklace. But critics have said the new Trader Sam is a "hearty attempt to reimagine a less racist version of the character."

The Nautilus?

This one may be a bit of a stretch, but Prince Joachim's submarine (also known as unterseeboots during World War I, when the film is set) is strangely reminiscent of the Nautilus vessel from Disney's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea."

Plemons plays the cartoonishly villainous German prince who brings a submarine to the Amazon and frees the squad of supernatural bad guys to help him claim the healing tree. Though the interior of the submarine is cold and cramped, Joachim somehow also has extravagant, luxurious quarters that solidify his bumbling caricature of a colonizing villain.

The famous Nautilus submarine was created by Jules Verne and featured in his novels "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" (1870) and in the Disney film of the same name from 1954. The Nautilus is shaped like a fish and has a shingled ramming fern at the bow. Joachim's submarine boasts a similar serrated ramming fern at its bow, but so did many other German UB-II-type submarines during World War I.

Magic Kingdom at Disney World had a 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea attraction that featured a 20-minute submarine ride aboard an adapted version of Nautilus, but the ride was shuttered in 1994.

The African Queen

The 1951 adventure classic "The African Queen" is one of the key elements that inspired the layout and storytelling of the original Jungle Cruise boat ride in Disneyland. Seventy years later, its inspiration lives on in the "Jungle Cruise" film.

The film is based on the 1935 novel of the same name and stars Humphry Bogart as a skipper ferrying a woman (Katharine Hepburn) down a river in a boat named the African Queen. The movie is also set during World War I and has long been heralded by critics as thrilling, adventurous, and funny with a hint of lighthearted romance.

While "Jungle Cruise" is obviously based on the theme park attraction, it clearly also takes inspiration from "The African Queen." Looper's review of the film said Johnson's Frank "looks like the human growth hormone version of Bogart" with Blunt's character giving "her ambitious scientist a little glint of Hepburn."

Frank also sports a nearly identical skipper outfit to Bogart's Charlie Allnut, complete with a red scarf tied around his neck and a black-billed white cap. The design of Frank's creaky, hodgepodge riverboat named La Quila also pays homage to Charlie's African Queen.

Disney's True-Life Adventures

Though "Jungle Cruise" is set in 1916, it does have a nod to "Disney's True-Life Adventure" nature documentaries, which premiered in the late 1940s, ran through 1960, and inspired the original Jungle Cruise attraction at Disneyland.

During a quieter moment in "Jungle Cruise," Blunt's character Lily uses a box camera to capture motion pictures of the wildlife and scenery of the jungle while sailing down the Amazon River. She captures soundless, black and white shots of butterflies, birds, and foliage while Johnson's Frank stares in awe. He's never seen a motion picture camera before, so Lily lets him try it out.

Lily also explains the excitement of motion pictures and how they can bring any place in the world right to you. It's a similar sentiment shared by Walt Disney and his team when shooting and sharing the "True-Life Adventure" features as well as creating the Jungle Cruise ride. Both the feature and attraction were made to bring the world to an audience — and give that audience a greater appreciation for wildlife and nature.

Nothing Else Matters

Yes, veteran heavy metal rockers Metallica reworked an orchestral version of "Nothing Else Matters" for a key scene in Disney's "Jungle Cruise" movie. It's an unexpected but delightful detail that somehow fits in a flashback scene set in the mid-1500s with Spanish conquistadors and a tribe of Indigenous people in the Amazonian rainforest.

Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich talked about the Disney collaboration in September 2020, saying it goes back to "lifelong rock fan" Sean Bailey, who is Disney's production president. Ulrich worked with "Jungle Cruise" score composer James Newton Howard to rearrange "Nothing Else Matters" into a piece that's instrumental (pun intended) to the dark, frenzied scene. In an interview with Collider, Ulrich said the version is a "very unusual" morph of the iconic song.

The scene is a flashback to the 1560s, first in Algiers and then in the Amazon, as Aguirre (Ramírez) and his fellow mercenaries search in vain for the healing tree to save Aguirre's daughter. Just as they're at their weakest, the group is saved by the tribe that guards the tree. In a bout of anger-filled impatience, Aguirre and his men kill most of the tribe because of their reluctance to share the secrets of the tree. They are then cursed with immortality and an inability to leave the sight of the river or else face brutal consequences.

The scene is quick and feels a bit jammed with a lot of plot points that can be hard to follow, but the new arrangement of "Nothing Else Matters" is a dizzying, welcome addition to a score otherwise filled with spirited adventure ballads.

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Film / Jungle Cruise

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Jungle Cruise is a 2021 adventure film directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, produced by Walt Disney Pictures and based on the Disney Theme Parks ride of the same name , and in turn loosely based on The African Queen , the film that inspired the ride.

Set during the early 20th century, a riverboat captain named Frank Wolff ( Dwayne Johnson ) takes Lily Houghton ( Emily Blunt ), an English scientist, and her brother MacGregor ( Jack Whitehall ) on a mission into a jungle to find the Tree of Life, which is believed to possess healing powers. All the while, the trio must fight against dangerous wild animals, a competing German expedition and a rather unexpected enemy .

The film also stars Édgar Ramírez , Jesse Plemons and Paul Giamatti . It was released on July 30, 2021, simultaneously in theaters and on Disney+ with Premier Access. The film became available to all Disney+ subscribers on November 12, 2021. In August 2021, it was announced a sequel, again featuring Johnson and Blunt, had been greenlit.

Jungle Cruise contains examples of:

Accidental Murder : MacGregor punches Joachim into a wall, who then happens to be crushed by a piece of stone that falls from above. MacGregor immediately lampshades that he didn't mean for that to happen.
Action Girl : Lily is quite the swashbuckler, having even more stunts than Frank, as well as throwing a pretty solid punch.
Adaptation Expansion : Like with Pirates of the Caribbean , Jungle Cruise adds plenty of new characters and lore that didn't exist in the original ride, such as the Tears of the Moon, the tree that can heal anything, the Conquistadors who were cursed while trying to take it, the Germans seeking to seize it for their war effort, and many of the Amazon creatures in general as the Amazon River has the most minimal role of all the rivers in the ride, being primarily represented by piranhas or Inspiration Falls depending on the version.
Affectionate Nickname : Lily and Frank playfully refer to each other as "Pants" and "Skippy" respectively.
Agony of the Feet : Shortly after getting the arrowhead from the society, Lily and MacGregor recount an incident where he apparently lost two toes from an expedition to Bhutan when he was 7 when MacGregor is arguing against joining her on her planned Amazon trip. Later, he hurts the other foot when escaping from Aguirre and his men.
All Animals Are Dogs : Proxima the jaguar acts a lot like a dog.
Ambiguously Gay : MacGregor is rather heavily implied to be gay, but not explicitly said to be so. He admits to Frank that he has rejected three attempts by his family to marry him off to highborn young ladies because his affections lie "elsewhere," and his sister Lily is the only relative who doesn't regard him with disgust. Given the social conventions of upper-class Edwardian English society, it's possible that he's talking about being in love with a working-class woman , but his evasive description (and the fact that he's an able-bodied military-age male who's not in the army at the height of WWI), and the fact he never mentions an actual love interest and the specification that he could not accept any offer (which could be loyalty to another woman he has fallen for, but is more likely to mean that the issue is in the gender) pushes the audience's suspicions pretty far in the other direction. It's worth noting that this is accurate for the time period the movie is set in.
Amusing Injuries : Poor Frank gets punched a whole lot. And after he's revealed to be immortal, he gets even worse, since he can survive things like being stabbed, shot, and attacked by piranha.
And I Must Scream : Tired of Aguirre and his crew constantly tracking him down, Francisco lured them into a trap that dropped them down into a cave out of sight of the river. When the jungle tried to drag them back, they were immobilized, turned to stone, and their bodies began to erode, becoming part of the jungle itself. At the end, he leaves them in the same state once again, and nearly suffers this fate himself.
And Starring : "With Jesse Plemons , And Paul Giamatti "
…And That Little Girl Was Me : At one point, Lily and Frank discuss Aguirre's cartographer, with Frank saying that he spent his life searching for the Tears of the Moon to no avail. He fails to mention that he was said cartographer, and had been searching for the Tears of the Moon for centuries.
Angry, Angry Hippos : Invoked. During his boats trips, Frank uses a fake hippopotamus to scare the tourists, even though (As one of the tourists points out) hippos don't live in the Amazon.
When Joachim shoots at Frank's steamboat with dual mounted machine guns, he runs out of ammo, calls for "reload", and then sits around as if he expects it to happen automatically (the actual reloading process occurs offscreen). The guns he's using have ammo drums that have to be swapped out manually.
At least one of the German soldiers uses an American shotgun despite being a member of the Imperial German Navy (and Imperial Germany's contentious relationship with shotguns on the battlefield, which they insisted was a war crime ).
Frank's riverboat, La Quila , doesn't make much sense mechanically. The "engine" seen being lifted out of the ship near the start of the film looks vaguely like a dressed-up steam engine piston assembly, but it has no obvious physical connection to the firebox or propeller (such connections would also make the engine more difficult to remove and reattach than shown). The firebox is misplaced, being located in a stove-like chamber at the base of the (excessively large) funnel instead of being under the boiler (which either doesn't exist, or is also not where it should be). The mechanical parts of the ship in general are overdressed with pointless components and pipes while the actual working parts are too small for a boat the size and speed of the Quila (an engine with one or two pistons, a stove-size firebox, and a boiler small enough to stow away are more fitting for the small steam launches used by the real-life ride).
The interior of Joachim's U-Boat is excessively roomy, to the point where it's not immediately obvious that the scenes taking place in his personal study are actually inside a part of the sub until he opens the door. Needless to say, this sort of accommodation would not be possible in a World War One-era submarine (which were notoriously cramped, greasy, and generally filthy).
Aristocrats Are Evil : Prince Joachim is one of the main antagonists of the movie, seeking the Tree of Life to use its powers to win the war for Imperial Germany.
MacGregor sums up Lily's excursion at the Society. MacGregor: Breaking and entering, larceny and, worst of all, having to take public transport.
At the end, when MacGregor is telling the Society about the adventure, they seem to take in all the crazy exploits, the battles with evil Germans and the undead monstrous conquistadors...but it's when he mentions a woman being chief of a native tribe that the Society members act in outraged disbelief, as if they're unaware of the female monarchs their own country has had in the past—including Queen Victoria, whose reign had only ended with her death in 1901, well within living memory of the setting .
Awesome, but Impractical : A German U-boat might have allowed Joachim to smuggle himself and a crew of supporters into the Amazon river undetected, as well as boasting more offensive capability that anything else in the river, but U-boats were built for the open ocean, not rivers. Even a river as big as the Amazon can only barely fit the sub, and the closest it gets to being a threat is at the start of the journey, when the river mouth is widest and Joachim can maneuver without too much difficultly, allowing him to bring the guns and torpedoes on board to bear against Frank's decisively less well-equipped craft, but once Frank used his boat's smaller size and greater agility to his advantage, Joachim accomplishes little to inconvenience him, save wrecking Nilo's rival boating company in the crossfire. By the time of the Final Battle , the submarine becomes beached when Frank and Lily uncover the secret entrance to the Tears of the Moon through lowering the water level in the basin they're in, whereas Frank's boat can still proceed through to the tree no problem. Frank: Who brings a submarine to the Amazon?
The Barnum : Frank's "thrilling" cruise is purposefully engineered to be exciting without any real danger, using fake submerged hippos and natives acting the part of blowgun-wielding "marauders".
Beastly Bloodsports : In the bar where Lily and MacGregor meet Frank, some fights between spiders and scorpions are organized.
Been There, Shaped History : A mild case as it turns out Frank is the one who founded the town he lives in centuries before .
Belligerent Sexual Tension : It does not take long after Frank and Lily meet for them to start bickering, giving each other sassy nicknames, and saving each other's lives .
Big Bad Duumvirate : Prince Joachim and Lope de Aguirre are the main villains of the movie.
Bilingual Bonus : The name of Frank's original rescued animal was the Spanish phrase La Proxima note (Meaning "The Next") . It was also the name of the next one, and the next one, and the next one.
Bling of War : Aguirre's armor was both more ornamental than the rest of his troops and gilded with gold.
Bloodless Carnage : Justified in Frank's case as a side-effect of the curse prevents him from losing any blood. When the curse stops working again, he happily notes that he's bleeding .
Book Ends : The film begins with MacGregor giving a speech to the Society, stuttering and using cue cards from Lily while going along as a distraction to ask for their approval. The movie ends with him giving his own speech and fully confident after his Character Development , soundly and rightfully rejecting their request for Lily to join on her own behalf.
Brick Joke : Early on in the film, Lily taunts Joachim by switching the arrowhead in it's container with a Toucan toy that was in the same packaging crate. Joachim keeps hold of it, and in the finale Frank does the same thing to Aguirre, pretending the Toucan toy wrapped up in a cloth is the Petal they're fighting over to distract him long enough for his boat to ram and block the river entrance to the chamber they're in, activating their curse's restrictions against all 5 of them .
Brother–Sister Team : Lily and MacGregor Houghton. Lily's adventurous and determined, and MacGregor goes with her to keep her out of trouble. Also counts as Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy .
Poor Nilo, getting his boating company caught in the crossfire of a submarine .
Also MacGregor, who gets repeatedly dragged into his sister Lily's adventures. Apparently, one such expedition cost him two toes.
But Not Too Gay : Billed as yet Disney's most recent "first openly gay character" note (after Artie in Cruella , LeFou in Beauty and the Beast , Officer Spector in Onward , Larma D’Acy and Wrobie Tyce in The Rise of Skywalker and that one guy Joe Russo played in Avengers: Endgame ) MacGregor merely says his "interests lie elsewhere" when discussing his past refusal to marry. (Just to cement that it's this trope, he talks of being ostracized because of "who I love," but has no love interest whatsoever in the film.) Justified in that the timeframe is WW1 and England was known to arrest gay people for 'crime of indecency' so he at least has an excuse of not wanting to discuss it out-loud.
Cloudcuckoolander's Minder : MacGregor is a downplayed example. Lily has a tendency to let her adventurous tendencies get the better of her, while the cooler-headed MacGregor helps to save her from whatever situation she's put herself in. The opening demonstrates this well when Lily is hanging over a busy street, and MacGregor gets a double-decker bus to stop under her, allowing her to drop down safely.
Complete Immortality : The conquistadors including Frank are immune to any form of death, including old age or injury. No matter how damaged they are, they'll just regenerate. The only way to circumvent this is to break their curse with the Tears of the Moon.
Curse Cut Short : Frank gets out an "Oh, shi—" before getting taken out with a tranquilizer dart.
Deadpan Snarker : How MacGregor copes with the situation.
Death by Looking Up : MacGregor knocks Joachim against a wall that causes a pillar to fall on top of him, though he has enough time to let out an "Oh scheiße " before he's crushed.
Death Seeker : Frank, after experiencing Who Wants to Live Forever? . He gets over it after Lily lifts his curse and instead goes to London with her to live out his natural lifespan.
Deliberate Injury Gambit : Lily pulls off one by proxy in the finale, shooting Frank to make it look like she was betraying him for a chance at the Tears of the Moon. He wasn't really affected because of his curse, but it gave him the opportunity to fake it and go to rescue MacGregor.
Department of Redundancy Department : "Trader Sam likes a trade."
Lope de Aguirre was this, relentlessly venturing further into the Amazon jungle no matter how many losses he suffered, from his ship, to his crew falling one by one, to eventually himself succumbing to either exhaustion or disease before the natives found him and nursed him back to health. Francisco reveals this was because his daughter was deathly ill, and he hoped to cure her with the petals, but it's tragically Deconstructed as this very trait of his is ultimately what damns him to a Fate Worse than Death twice over. The native chief cursed him and bound him to the river because he refused to turn back after finally finding proof of the Tears of the Moon and was willing to slaughter both the natives and even his own brother-in-arms Francisco if it meant getting the arrowhead, and his refusal to accept the consequences of his actions lead to him instead blaming Francisco when he became included in the conquistador's curse, hunting him down and repeatedly killing him over the years until Franciso was forced to subject him to Taken for Granite , because he would never stop coming after him otherwise .
Lily is also a good example. She will get the Tears of the Moon, and no undead conquistadores, German royalty, river rapids, naysaying from Frank, or sexist gentleman's club will stop her. Frank: You should give up! Lily: You should give up the guitar !
Disney Death : Happens to Frank twice. First, during a fight with Aguirre, he's stabbed through the heart and falls into the river. Then it turns out that he's immortal. And later at the end of the final battle, he sacrifices himself by ramming his boat to block the river in order to defeat Aguirre once and for all, turning himself, Aguirre, and his men into stone. Then Lily gives him the petal, which revives him.
Don't Explain the Joke : After making a pun about a pair of toucans fighting over something to eat (a game only two can play) that falls flat, Frank starts explaining that they're toucans and only two can play...get it? His passengers aren't impressed.
Dragon with an Agenda : Prince Joachim indulges in some Evil Gloating about how first he will use the Tears to win the war, then Take Over the World , and finally "reign forever." Given that he's the youngest son of Kaiser Wilhelm, it sure doesn't sound like he plans on sharing immortality with Papa Willy or any of his five big brothers or his younger sister.
Dwindling Party : Aguirre's expedition got hit with this, first losing their ship on the mouth of the river, then the entire crew dying one by one to the dangers of the jungle, with only 5 conquistadors, including Aguirre himself, being left on the verge of death by the time the native tribe found them and nursed them back to health with the Tears of the Moon. Then that number dwindles down to 4 once Francisco turns on his compatriots when they start killing the natives to get the arrowhead .
Dying Curse : After being stabbed, the chief used his last breath to lay a curse on the five conquistadors to live forever yet never be allowed to leave view of the Amazon River. This also saved his daughter, who had the Arrowhead, as the jungle dragged Aguirre away from her.
Evil Is Petty : Prince Joachim's not only a greedy bastard, but he's also quite vindictive shown in the Royal Society at the beginning of the film when he murders many of Sir James's workers with his own hands just because the latter unintentionally mispronounced his name.
Evil Makes You Monstrous : Unlike the similar curse in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl , the Conquistadores' curse doesn't specifically do anything to their appearance, as demonstrated by Frank/Francisco, their Token Good Teammate who looks totally normal . Their current Body Horror is the indirect result of continuing to be evil after being cursed. Francisco had to trap them in a cave away from the Amazon to stop them pursuing him. Since they were suddenly away from the river, the jungle tried to pull them back, but it couldn't get them through the surrounding stone, and instead merged them with the surroundings. Even after they're re-animated by Joachim bringing the river to them, their original bodies have suffered so badly from erosion that they were replaced with things like bees, mud, and snakes. Had they not gone after Francisco, they'd look much the same as they always had.
Exact Words : When Joachim said that only one of them can get the petal, he asks Frank if was willing to give up his petal for Lily. Frank specifically said Lilly will have to kill him for it. So she does. Or more specifically, she helps him fake his death so he could go help MacGregor.
Fate Worse than Death : The conquistadors were cursed with immortality at the cost that they would always be drawn back to the river if they tried to go out of visual range of it. Later, Francisco (Frank) managed to trap them in a pit so that they would be kept away from the river for centuries, their bodies collapsing and being 'replaced' by things ranging from bees to snakes until the German forces detonated explosives to send the river into the pit . This happens again at the end, when the heroes use Frank's riverboat to cut off the flow of water into the temple; the curse drags them into the temple walls, where they will presumably stay forever .
Five-Second Foreshadowing : Aquirre mentions getting revenge on a man named "Francisco" one minute before the reveal that Frank is a former member of their group and is cursed as well .
Frank looks surprised when Lily shows the map...which makes sense as he drew it and is amazed a copy got to England .
In said staged fight, when Frank wrestles with the jaguar on the ground, he sees a scorpion skittering towards the cat and immediately throws her to the other side (and when he sees a spider on that side, he tosses her up and onto a table), showing that he's clearly manipulating the fight to keep Proxima away from anything that might actually hurt her. He is also more concerned about Proxima's safety than his own, since he is effectively immortal.
During the fight Proxima bites Frank's arm, later prompting him to remark that she did it "way too hard". Such a bite would have, at the very least, left Frank with a noticeably bleeding wound, yet he appears perfectly fine. One may wave it off as being part of the ruse, or a fumble of the FX crew, but it's actually a subtle hint at him being unable to bleed due to his curse .
Frank looks noticeably shaken when he sees the arrowhead Lily's wearing around her neck and becomes insistent upon being the one to take her on the cruise to find the Tree, even after she's discovered his lies about being Nilo, whereas before he was determined to take her on a safe, but enjoyable trip to get her money to pay for his boat back. At first, this seems to be foreshadowing that Frank had himself been searching for the Tree before giving up and deciding to become a Riverboat skipper after failing to find it for years, but instead it's because he's literally just seen the key to breaking his curse dangled right in front of him and knows Lily is actually serious about finding the tree .
Frank complains Proxima is "the worst cat I've ever had." This seems a joke at first until you learn Proxima is only the latest in the long line of cats Frank has owned over the centuries, all sharing the same name .
During a conversation with MacGregor Frank reveals that he speaks Latin which was the dominant lingua franca of European scholars prior to the 18th century. As a cartographer Frank would likely have been versed in this language as part of his education.
Frank makes reference to having "run out of things to draw" before it's revealed that he was the cartographer for the conquistador's expedition through the Amazon and has spent centuries drawing maps of the region .
When Frank and Lily meet the mutated Aguirre, Lily is surprised that the legend of the Conquistadors is true, while Frank just says "this is impossible." Frank already knew the curse was real, because he was one of the conquistadors and is the reason they were trapped, thus he isn't surprised that Aguirre is alive, just that he escaped the cave.
Frank initially nicknames Lily as "Pants", mainly out of his jokes about seeing a woman wearing pants. While it could easily be chalked up to it being an unusual sight in the Amazon, it may also be combined with Frank's lack of knowledge about the world beyond the Amazon due to his curse, not to mention his age; seeing as it's been a while since he was last in an actual city and may literally not be used to seeing women wear such clothing to begin with. It's not just him either; the conquistadors similarly refer to Lily as the "woman in pants", which hints at both Frank's true age and his history with them.
Observant viewers will realize that the terms of the conquistador's curse, that they are 'never to leave sight of the river again' fits neatly in with Frank's job as a riverboat captain who has intricate knowledge of the estuaries and layout of the jungle landscape.
When talking about the local legend that some types of fish in the river as shapeshifter spirits who will curse them with bad nightmares for life if they look them in the eye, Frank warns Lily and MacGregor that 'If you believe in legends, you should believe in curses too.' Whilst it seems to be foreshadowing the fact that the conquistador's curse is Real After All , it's actually foreshadowing that Frank himself has first-hand experience with the curse, being a member of the conquistador's party 400 years ago.
During Frank's conversation with MacGregor, he has somewhat doubtful expression when MacGregor claims there haven't been any conquistadors in the area for 300 years. Because MacGregor is claiming the cursed conquistadors weren't real, to one of the conquistadors in question .
Counts more as Five-Second Foreshadowing , but when Frank is impaled by Aguirre, he seems remarkably unconcerned with the mortal wound, pulling himself closer on the blade to grab the arrowhead from one of Aguirre's snakes and throwing it to Lily even as he falls off the tree, showing remarkable clarity of mind for somebody who's about to die. It turns out that Frank's actually immortal, and has apparently been impaled before. Repeatedly .
Frank is negotiating with the natives in their own language. After a few moments, we see the translation where Frank is surprisingly outspoken about Lily being difficult and blasé about their lives in danger. This sets up the reveal the tribe and Frank are working together and this is all a huge performance . A similar foreshadowing can be taken from earlier in the film where the natives who "attacked" Frank's tour group were obviously also putting on a performance .
Early in the movie, Frank jokingly claims that Zaqueu looks 10, but is actually 47. Frank is actually the one who is significantly older than he looks .
In the first scene where Frank is giving a jungle cruise to tourists, he points out two toucans fighting over food ("a game only two can play") . This foreshadows the role of the toucan figurine when two characters are fighting over either the Tears of the Moon or the arrowhead, where the loser is tricked into fighting over the figurine instead.
When Frank gets punched by either of the Houghton siblings, he comments on their "strong form." While this is expected for Lily , he also says it about MacGregor. MacGregor happens to be an amateur boxer.
Frank seems to be incredibly fond of his riverboat and refuses to part with her or replace her, despite her being...past her prime (to put it mildly) . Turns out, he built the boat by hand 400 years ago and she has been his home the whole time, which explains his reluctance to part with her.
Why would Frank be particularly cold and dismissive of the Houghton siblings, even treating them exploitatively in the first acts? As someone cursed to be immortal, he has already buried many of his friends so he does not want his heart broken again. The emotional distancing has become a coping mechanism.
Friendship Moment : Frank explaining to Lily his full backstory for the first time including his true name and why he was also chasing after the Tears of the Moon marks the moment the two characters were able to finally trust each other.
Funny Background Event : While Frank is tossing MacGregor's bags in the river, a group of locals on a rowboat can be seen snagging the luggage for themselves.
Gaia's Vengeance : The Conquistador that's made out of Bees Wax, is dripping honey, and has bees following him everywhere is none too pleased when Prince Joachim kills some of his bees. He learns about it because one of them managed to escape and flew back to tell him. When he appears he says quite angrily "I've been told you were not nice to my little friends."
Gender Flip : The male shrunken head salesman Trader Sam is switched into the female chief of the native tribe.
Got Me Doing It : Lily unleashes a bad pun at the end, as Frank had been doing throughout the movie.
Guilt by Association Gag : A dramatic example. Francisco, who would eventually be known as Frank, was included in the curse on the conquistadors despite turning on them in order to protect the native village.
He Knows Too Much : After his identity is accidentally revealed, Joachim kills everyone who was in earshot of it. Justified as he is a German aristocrat in the middle of London during World War I .
Heroic Sacrifice : Frank uses La Quila to block the river and petrify the conquistadors once more... at the cost of the curse getting him too. Thankfully, it doesn't last long before Lily cures him.
Prince Joachim Franz Humbert of Prussia, youngest son of Kaiser Wilhelm II. note The real Prince Joachim, between being unable to adjust to his change in status after his father was deposed and his marriage falling apart, killed himself in 1920. He also reportedly did not speak English.
Lope de Aguirre, the 16th Century Spanish conquistador, who's been trapped in the Amazon jungle since his supposed death. His comrades (Melchor, Sancho, and Gonzalo) are all names of historical figures relevant to Aguirre's conquest of Peru.
Prince Joachim of Prussia was a real person; he did serve in the German army during the First World War but doesn't seem to have been particularly villainous. Indeed Irish rebels against the British during the Easter Rising in 1916 even considered offering him the throne of an independent Ireland in the event of a German victory. Overlaps with Death by Adaptation as the real Joachim survived the war only to take his own life in 1920 after Germany became a republic and his marriage had fallen apart.
However, the trope is also downplayed: Joachim is a villain mostly because he opposes the heroes, and while his goal is not admirable in the slightest using a magical remedy to win the war and extend his own life keeping the monopoly of it are pretty understandable goals for a member of a royal family. His villainous actions are done in pursuit of that goal rather than out of malice. He is also one of only two men never shown to be dismissive of Lily because of her gender.
Hollywood Natives : Invoked by Frank, who works with the Puka Michuna as part of his show, with the tribal leader, Trader Sam, even commenting on how ridiculous the whole show is, and the tribe is actually quite normal, even if they aren't entirely aware of outside happenings.
Humanoid Abomination : The conquistadors, sans Frank , due to a side effect of their curse; when they're freed after having been petrified for centuries, erosion had done a serious number on their bodies and they have to take elements from the surrounding area to fill in the missing parts. Aguirre himself is mostly snakes, and his men are made of beehives, mud, and tree branches respectively.
I Ate WHAT?! : Subverted. When MacGregor drinks what he thinks is beer at the native tribe, Frank points out it's actually fermented spit. Though initially disgusted, MacGregor continues to drink it anyways. It is also a sign of character development.
Improperly Placed Firearms : A minor example where one of the U-boat crew threatens Frank with a Winchester '97 12-gauge. The Germans had a major cultural aversion to shotguns being used as combat weapons, enough that in 1918 they threatened to execute any American captured with one as a war criminal note the US called them out on it, citing their liberal use of flamethrowers and poison gas , and promised to execute all German POWs if they tried it; the Germans quickly backed down . So although not impossible, it is highly unlikely that any German grunt would even possess, much less use, a combat shotgun.
Inevitable Waterfall : Frank and Lily's boat heads towards a waterfall at one point when sailing down the rapids. They almost end up going over it because Frank gets distracted messing around with Lily and fails to notice they've missed the turn into the safer river path.
Invincible Hero : Frank puts on the persona of being one in his river cruises, pretending to be an experienced skipper who can handle any dangers the jungle throws at him and his passengers with ease and cracking jokes all the time. Then it turns out he's literally this, as one of the five conquistadors who were cursed by the chief, he literally cannot die or be meaningfully hurt by any dangers of the jungle, and has apparently been stabbed by weapons often enough that Trader Sam has gotten tired of pulling them out of him and offers advice to Lily on how to best yank out a sword Frank's impaled by .
In-Universe Factoid Failure : One of the fake menaces Frank brings up to the tourists is a hippopotamus, but (as one girl points out) there are no hippos in the Amazon.
Invincible Villain : The conquistadors are cursed and utterly unkillable, with the heroes being able to fight them off, but not being able to keep them down for long, and unlike the cursed pirates from Pirates of the Caribbean , breaking their curse isn't easily achievable, as it requires the Tears of the Moon, which only bloom rarely in a secret location, so the heroes' only real choice is to Run or Die . Thankfully, the 'run' option is made more practical by the curse, as the Conquistadores can only pursue targets so far before they're dragged back to the river.
I Take Offense to That Last One : Of all the snide remarks that Lily makes to Frank, the one that really gets to him is the accusation of playing his guitar off-key.
Frank desperately wants the Tears of the Moon flower so he can break his 400 year old curse. When there was only one flower, he decides to not only give it to Lily, but to also allow himself to be turned into stone (while also trapping the other conquistadors) to save Lily's life.
Downplayed on Lily's part. Although the consequences of her giving the last Tears of the Moon to Frank to break his curse isn't as dramatic, it meant all of the effort and money she has spent on finding the flower would have gone to waste, not to mention the possible flak she would have received for failing to get a specimen of the flower.
Subverted Trope : see Karmic Jackpot
Jerkass Has a Point : Joachim doesn't have any noble purpose regarding the flower, but he is right in pointing out that Lily owes nothing to the association that wouldn't accept him because of her gender (noticeably, he is the only man beside MacGregor to never disregard her because of it, in his first appearance seeming genuinely impressed by her pointing out that the association mislabeled an artifact). Lily does end up choosing to reject the association in the end because of their mistreatment.
Karmic Jackpot : Lily gives up the single petal she has to revive Frank. The moonlight then happens to illuminate a single branch, allowing another to bloom for her to take.
Frank is generally cynical, doesn't think Lily can find the Tears of the Moon, and runs a tourist attraction full of fake thrills . He's also willing to put himself on the line to save Lily and Trader Sam's tribe. And during Lope de Aguirre's expedition, he was the only one to turn against Aguirre when he decided to massacre the tribe that took him in.
MacGregor really doesn't like the jungle and also doesn't think the legends are real. But that doesn't matter to him, because Lily's his sister (and the only member of his family who didn't disown him for his homosexuality), and he'd follow her into a volcano .
Lame Pun Reaction : Frank's many puns are often met with groans. One child begs her mother to make him stop.
Large and in Charge : Frank is the skipper of the boat and it's mentioned several times how big he is. He's played by 6'5"/196cm, 260lb/118kg Dwayne Johnson. This actually becomes a plot point, as it means Frank is too large to fit through the underwater ruins blocking the entrance to the tree's location, and has to help Lily overcome her inability to swim to reach the lever that opens the way .
Let's Get Dangerous! : MacGregor is presented as an Upper-Class Twit who is shown to hate the jungle, behaves quite effeminately (he's quite possibly gay) and brings an absurd amount of luggage on a trip up the Amazon River. He's also a Queensberry Rules boxer, and proves himself to be a very competent fighter when he completely levels the German submariners during the finale. He's even the one who takes out Prince Joachim, albeit partially by accident.
Logical Weakness : Albeit an impractical one; the Conquistadores' curse restricts them to the immediate vicinity of the Amazon river. If you really want them away from somewhere, you can re-route the river, changing where the curse allows them to go. Of course, this does require significant effort (it's not easy to change the course of the world's largest river), but it's how Joachim awakens the Conquistadores to help him out- he uses explosives to direct the river partially into the cave where they were trapped. It's also how the heroes defeat the Conquistadores in the end, using Frank's steamboat as an impromptu dam to suddenly define the area they were in as 'too far from the river'.
Logo Joke : The bay in the Disney logo is seen to have purple water, and after the Disney logo fully appears the camera dives into the water.
Lots of Luggage : MacGregor brings an absurd amount of luggage for a trip up the Amazon. Frank promptly throws most of it overboard.
Lovecraftian Superpower : The trapped Conquistadores have had parts of their body replaced by jungle. This makes them "disgusting" in the words of one and makes Aguirre wonder if they still have souls, but it allows them to control the wildlife in their bodies.
Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy : The adventure-seeking Lily who prefers wearing pants to MacGregor, who always tries to be a Sharp-Dressed Man and be clean, no matter how impractical.
Master of Unlocking : Lily is quite adept at lockpicking and uses it to get things she wants and into places others don't want her to be.
Misplaced Retribution : The native chief cursed all five conquistadors for the slaughter of his tribe, including Francisco, who didn't participate in the massacre and actually helped his daughter escape with the arrowhead his 'allies' were trying to retrieve, thus forever including him in Aguirre's eternal punishment despite not having done anything to deserve it himself. It's Justified though, as it's implied the chief's curse was vaguely-worded enough to count all the conquistadors as a group together, and the majority of them were guilty of shedding innocent blood, so the chief's Dying Curse wasn't able to exclude Francisco, not to mention the fact that the chief wasn't able to see Francisco turning on his comrades to protect his daughter. In addition, it also technically saved Francisco's life, as he was mortally wounded by Aguirre and almost died before the curse affected him.
Misplaced Wildlife : In-Universe . Frank's Jungle Cruise tour includes props of Hippos that he makes move around with loaded weights strategically cut to stimulate the cruise with safe but exciting thrills for the passengers. One little girl tries to point out that hippos aren't native to the Amazon before Frank shushes her.
Motive Decay : Frank reveals Aguirre's quest to find the Tears of the Moon was initially to find a cure for his terminally ill daughter, before he succumbed to anger and slaughtered the natives upon being rejected by the chief on the cusp of achieving his heart's desire. His anger at Francisco/Frank protecting the natives and allowing the chief's daughter to flee with the arrowhead they needed to find the tree lead to him spending their immortal lives hunting Frank down and killing him again and again, despite both of them being immortal and thus the outcome pointless regardless , and his daughter having long succumbed to either her disease or aging over the years. By the present day, he merely wants to break the curse that binds him to the river and give Frank further punishment for the Fate Worse than Death he gave them .
Frank is the Pungeon Master just like the skippers on the ride the film is based on.
The "dangers" of Frank's boat trips for tourists seen in the trailer are as fake as the ride it's based on. Frank also utters the famous "backside of water" line after he secretly cuts a rope to produce a "waterfall" from a sluice pipe hidden above.
Dr. Albert Falls is alluded to through a collection of artifacts discovered on his expedition, including the mysterious arrowhead.
While Frank's riverboat operation is the film's version of the Jungle Navigation Company, the competing "Nilo's River Adventure" bears a closer resemblance to the original Disney ride and the bright red and white boats from pre-90s incarnations. Nilo's office also features a door based on the offices seen on the upper floor of the Skipper Canteen at the Magic Kingdom.
Nilo's cockatoo is Rosita, the missing Birdmobile girl from The Enchanted Tiki Room that later made an appearance in person in the Jungle Cruise/Tiki Room themed restaurant Tropical Hideaway at Disneyland.
The chief of the native tribe is named Trader Sam, albeit a gender-flipped incarnation.
The chamber the Tears of the Moon is hidden in is essentially a Mayincatec version of the sunken temple found at the Magic Kingdom and Tokyo versions of the attraction.
The Navigator : Both Frank and Lily are skilled navigators, Lily because she's been adventuring most of her life and is skilled at reading maps and orienteering, and Frank because he lives and works on the Amazon, and knows every branch and tributary, because he's had centuries to roam them, looking for the Tears of the Moon. In fact, he's the one who drew the very map Lily is using.
Never Say "Die" : Frank uses a lot of euphemisms to talk about his intent to commit suicide after breaking the curse.
No Kill like Overkill : Joachim fires a torpedo against the La Quila , a tiny riverboat.
Not Even Bothering with the Accent : No explanation is ever given for Frank's clear American accent, even though he's living in Brazil and is a 400-year-old Spaniard.
Not So Above It All : At the end of the movie Lily joins in with making puns while driving Frank off into London.
Not-So-Harmless Villain : The Beeswax Conquistador comes off as the least threatening of the cursed conquistadors, being knocked out and incapacitated twice by mundane means whereas his more threatening compatriots require more effort to subdue, as well as partially enjoying his cursed state because he now tastes delicious, but his connection to the bees nesting inside him means that the conquistadors have a long-range spy network, able to communicate with Joachim and send him after Frank and the others when they evade the cursed group, as well as tracking them down for the Final Battle when one bee escape Joachim's attempts to crush them all and prevent the conquistadors finding the tree.
Only in It for the Money : Frank only reacts to Lily's demand for a river trip when she starts talking about her wealth, in part because he needs to make 5000 Real in one week in order to pay off his debt to Nilo in order to keep his boat, and his livelihood. This then becomes subverted when he catches a glimpse of the Arrowhead hanging around her neck, as it offers an opportunity for him to finally break his curse .
Panthera Awesome : Proxima the jaguar. Frank exploits this by training her to fake fights with him to make him look good.
Percussive Maintenance : Lily restarts Frank's engine by giving it a kick.
Piranha Problem : At one point, Frank throws a small rodent into the river to attract piranhas and eat them. Later in the film, a school of piranhas attacks Frank to eat him. Since he's immortal they aren't successful, but the experience is clearly unpleasant for him .
Pocket Protector : Subverted , but the spirit of the trope is there. Towards the climax of the movie, Lily grabs a gun and fakes turning on Frank in order to take Joachim's offer of 'a single petal' from the tree, shooting him so he falls into the water and can then ambush the remaining Germans back on his cruise boat holding MacGregor hostage. Frank actually doesn't have any such protective items to block the bullets, but since he's Immortal , it enables him to convincingly 'fake' getting shot more realistically . The only thing that nearly gives away the ruse is Frank getting equally taken off-guard by Lily's Unspoken Plan Guarantee and needing a second bullet to get the hint.
Politically Correct History : Zigzagged. MacGregor was realistically shunned by most of his family and associates for being gay in the 1910s. When he explains this to Frank, who is a Spaniard that grew up in the 1500s during the country's conservative Catholic environment , Frank is surprisingly open-minded about his sexuality and doesn't judge him. Given Frank's been stuck on the river for 400 years and has likely met plenty of people from all types of cultures and customs, he's had plenty of time to accept such things.
Profane Last Words : Joachim says "Oh scheiße" before being crushed to death.
The Punishment : The Conquistadors certainly don't like their current state, but it allows them some decent, if creepy superpowers , while Frank is entirely human, aside from the immortality . The trope is downplayed because the punishers didn't intend for them to get powers, and their curse does come with the hobble of being unable to go too far from the Amazon river. The chief who cursed them originally wanted them to stop them from pursuing his daughter, and Frank intended to just trap them forever. The reason they are partially made of jungle is because of the effects of erosion on their petrified bodies, and they only escape because Joachim re-directed the river with explosives.
Prussians in Pickelhauben : Apart from Lope de Aguirre , the villains are Imperial Germans, complete with a U-boat. Bonus points for Joachim specifically being the Prince of Prussia.
True to the original ride, Frank can't help but riff off several puns during his touring spiel, much to the annoyance of everyone who goes on a voyage with him. Some of the jokes are directly lifted from the ride's script.
In the ending, Lily teaches Frank how to drive. Lily remarks she has no idea what they're getting into, to which Frank replies, "An automobile". Lily replies that that remark was "exhausting". Geddit?
Ragnarök Proofing : Justified . The cursed Conquistadors use archaic weapons like a musket, crossbow, hatchet and swords that are still in working order and sharp as they're ever been—in the case of the crossbow and cusket they're still able to fire despite their wielders being made of Mud and Beeswax without the substances interfering with the firing mechanisms in any way—alongside armour that's still in usable condition, but it's made clear that this is because the items in question have become fused to their bodies through the centuries, and are thus included in the curse that preserves their existence. At once point, Aguirre chucks a knife at Lily that then turns into a snake, showing that they're basically forming the weapons from the surrounding environment to attack their targets with, when they're not using the parts of the environment they're made of to attack instead.
Reading the Stage Directions Out Loud : When MacGregor reads Lily's prepared statement at the beginning, he says, "Pause for dramatic effect" in front of everybody.
Reduced to Ratburgers : Subverted when Frank shoots a rodent out of a tree and MacGregor asks if he expects him to eat that. Instead he uses it as piranha bait.
Relationship Upgrade : Frank and Lily .
Really 700 Years Old : Frank the skipper is really the 400 year old Francisco, formerly Aguirre's cartographer and right-hand man until the massacre of the natives created a rift between them.
Reimagining the Artifact : Trader Sam and the other native characters are reimagined as native actors Frank hires to provide thrills to his passengers. Sam even mocks the stereotypical costumes they put on to scare Lily and MacGregor.
Revenge Before Reason : Aguirre could make the most of his immortality like Frank has done, but instead he obsesses over punishing him for his betrayal. This forces Frank to inflict a Fate Worse than Death on him.
Running Gag : One of the Houghton siblings getting surprised by Frank and reflexively punching him in the face, which he shrugs off with minor annoyance (and a remark that they have "strong form"). Frank: Every time!
The Savage Indian : Invoked by Frank as one of the "dangers" of the Amazon. At one point, jungle natives start shooting darts at Frank's boat, which is full of tourists; when one actually gets inside the boat instead of just hitting the side, Frank mouths "c'mon!" and gives them a disapproving "that could've hit someone!" look, to which they depart with a sheepish wave of apology, meaning they're just in cahoots with him to provide safe thrills to the tourists.
Screw This, I'm Outta Here : Trader Sam literally jumps ship when Joachim catches up to the heroes and she swims back to her tribe.
Sealed Evil in a Can : Aquirre and his men into were imprisoned in a cave where they couldn't see the river, resulting in them being turned to stone when the curse tried to drag them back and couldn't do it properly. It turns out Frank did it. Joachim sets them free. Frank manages to cut them off from the river inside the temple and seal them away again.
Sealed Evil in a Duel : A variant, in that Frank and Aguirre technically don't have to fight each other, but Aguirre blames him for losing the arrowhead all those centuries ago and takes his anger out on Francisco by repeatedly hunting him down and killing him, even if the curse prevents Francisco from staying dead. Eventually, Frank gets tired of getting repeatedly stabbed and decides to swap this for Sealed Evil in a Can instead .
Self-Inflicted Hell : While cursed to live forever and be unable to leave sight of the river, Aguirre and his men only end up as twisted, undead monsters because they continued to hunt down Frank in the name of Revenge , leading him to trap then in a place where they couldn't return to the river and were left petrified for centuries .
Sensitive Guy and Manly Man : Frank is a gun-toting, rough-and-tumble boat captain and former Spanish conquistador . MacGregor Haughton is a foppish pretty boy, albeit a surprisingly competent Queensberry Rules boxer .
Sharp-Dressed Man : MacGregor insists on being one, impracticality be damned. Both Frank and Lily point out multiple ways that this is a bad idea. He does not remain one for long.
Shot in the Ass : MacGregor gets it with a tranquilizer dart.
The main female character's names are both types of flowers, Lily and Rose.
Frank and Charlie when first starting out, point out that there's only two hours of daylight left, but Lily and Rose points out that that is two hours of extra time to go.
Frank and Charlie point out that the only place to take a bath is the river. However, Lily doesn't take them up on the bath, unlike Rose.
After going through a set of rapids, the main male character expects the female character to want to turn back, but instead they enjoyed it.
Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Trailer : MacGregor's role is greatly de-emphasized in the trailers (the amount of times he's clearly in frame across all of them could be counted on two hands, and his speaking lines on one hand), while Nilo never shows up or is mentioned at all; justified, as Jack Whitehall and Paul Giamatti aren't nearly as internationally famous as Blunt and Johnson are.
Small Role, Big Impact : Dr. Albert Falls is only mentioned in passing, but he found and retrieved the Arrowhead that was required to find the Tears of the Moon. There's also Aguirre's cartographer, who made the maps that Lily and Joachim both use. Subverted with the latter; he's actually a main character.
Something That Begins with "Boring" : MacGregor attempts to play "I Spy" with Trader Sam in the canoe before being ambushed.
Soundtrack Dissonance : In comparison to the film mostly using rousing adventure-movie-style music, the tragic backstory portions instead use a re-recorded version of Metallica 's "Nothing Else Matters".
Staff of Authority : Prince Joachim carries a fancy one that also happens to be a Sword Cane .
Lily doesn't know how to swim.
During the final fight at La Luna Rota, after MacGregor knocks some German soldiers into the water, they are not seen again.
Take Me Instead : When the group is captured by the natives, Frank tries to convince them to let Lily and Macgregor go, insisting that there's no way all three can get out. Subverted when it's revealed that Frank knew all along they weren't in real danger .
Taken for Granite : This is the fate of the conquistadors after Francisco tricked them into falling down a pit far from the river, manipulating the specific wording of their curse against them. When the jungle attempted to drag them back, it couldn't pull them through the rock and they were instead fused into it. By the time Joachim releases them after 300 years, the elements have eroded their petrified bodes enough that they end up forming replacements from the jungle matter around them in facsimiles of their original bodies. Frank exploits this in the climax to petrify them and himself once more .
Taking You with Me : Frank pulls this on Aguirre and the conquistadors during the finale. Ramming his steamer to cut off the river's access to the tree chamber causes the curse to ensnare and petrify all five Spaniards, Frank included . Only a last second intervention prevents this being fatal.
There's No Kill like Overkill : Using a pair of MG-08/15 machine guns against Frank's boat? Reasonable enough if you have murderous intent. Escalating to a torpedo when that fails? Now you're just getting ridiculous.
Tribal Face Paint : When MacGregor befriends some of the locals, one offers what MacGregor assumes to be red face paint. Only after does he learn it's permanent tattoo ink.
Underwater Kiss : Frank does the "Breath of Air" type to Lily (twice) to save her from drowning when she's trapped in an underwater cage.
Undying Loyalty : Despite him loathing his sister's adventurous nature and the scrapes it drags him into, MacGregor states he would still follow Lily into a volcano if he had to, because she's the only member of his family who didn't disown him when it was revealed he was gay (or so he implies.)
Unspoken Plan Guarantee : Lily's plan to trick Joachim at the end is a good example, although it almost fails because Frank is just as in the dark as the audience, and doesn't know he's supposed to fall into the water after she shoots him, so he can swim over to help free MacGregor. Luckily, he gets the hint after the second shot.
Upper-Class Twit : MacGregor is a benign example. He is the sort of guy who tries to take golf clubs on a trip down the Amazon, but he's also the sort of guy who will follow his sister into a volcano because she stood up for him.
Frank has a pet jaguar, showing his deep understanding of the Amazon and the creatures living there. He's also had an ocelot and a cougar over the years.
The Beeswax Conquistador also appears to view the bees nesting in him as allies/companions, referring to them as his "little friends" when confronting Joachim at the sacred tree .
Vomit Chain Reaction : After the rapids, Frank teases Lily about looking seasick and offers some food, prompting her to vomit. This in turn causes MacGregor to vomit to Frank's amusement... until he nearly vomits himself.
Villains Want Mercy : Aguirre begs Frank not to seal him and the other Conquistadors away again as they're being turned back to stone.
The Conquistadors are effectively immortal and possess incredible powers but have to stay in sight of the Amazon at all times. Several times, their attempts to get the arrowhead are thwarted simply because their target ran a bit too far away, and they get dragged away from the chase. Intentionally invoked by the chief who cursed them in the first place, as he wanted to make sure they couldn't catch his daughter as she escaped with the arrowhead.
The Beeswax Conquistador apparently shares a sympathetic connection to the bees nesting in his body. When Frank vents the furnace on his boat into his face, it floods the cabin with smoke and suffocates the bees, causing the Conquistador to faint in addition to the heat causing the honey and beeswax in his body to soften and lose its integrity.
Wham Line : Frank: Actually...it's Francisco. And I'm basically 400 years old.
Wham Shot : When Lily finds Frank washed up on shore after being stabbed, she thinks he miraculously survived...and then sees the sword still sticking out his back with Frank seemingly feeling no pain, let alone bleeding .
What Happened to the Mouse? : Aguirre pursued the tree in order to save his daughter's life, and it was being denied that which drove him to turn on the natives. Despite this it's never mentioned what happened to her and so whether she recovered from her illness or died is left unknown. Justified, as the conquistadors were cursed to be unable to leave the Amazon river, and as such had no real way of finding out her fate.
What Have I Become? : The conquistadors are horrified at what has become of their bodies. Aguirre even wonders if they still have souls after being ravaged by the curse for centuries. However, it's averted by the beeswax conquistador. Mud Conquistador (in Spanish): We're disgusting. Beeswax Conquistador (in Spanish): Speak for yourself. I'm delicious!
Who Wants to Live Forever? : Obviously the cursed conquistadors aren't happy about their situation, but Francisco is shown having lived for so long that he's had to bury every friend he's made since . At the conclusion, Francisco is 'freed' of his immortality and enjoys the chance to live a normal life away from the Amazon even knowing that he will now die of old age . "Everything you see as new, I've seen hundreds of thousands of times."
Why Did It Have to Be Snakes? : Lily is afraid of swimming, which is a bit problematic when her latest adventure takes her up the Amazon river.
The Worm That Walks : Aguirre and his fellow conquistadors have had their bodies devolved into this after years of being cut off from the river, with them being made of different jungle parts like snakes, mud and frogs, tree roots and branches, and bee nests.
Wrestler of Beasts : Frank fights a jaguar in front of the protagonists to convince them to hire him. It is later revealed that the jaguar was tamed and the fight was staged.
You Could Have Used Your Powers for Good! : As shown by Frank /Francisco, the conquistadors' curse doesn't actually make them monsters or anything other than Immortal humans who cannot die, age or leave sight of the river for the rest of eternity. Aguirre's pointless anger at Francisco for allowing the chieftain's daughter to flee with the arrowhead instead drives him to spend about 50 years hunting him down and killing him again and again in a pointless demonstration of his wrath towards his former brother-in-arms, rather than doing something productive with the time he had been granted. Whereas Francisco was able to build a small town, and make a livelihood out of the advantages the curse granted him , Aguirre's refusal to do anything other than blame others for his situation instead lead to him being imprisoned by Franciso and devolving into a literal and figurative monster by the present day.
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Submarine Voyage

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Submarine Voyage Through Liquid Space known more simply as Submarine Voyage is a defunct attraction which was open in Disneyland's Tomorrowland.

1.1 Backstory
1.2 Development history
2.1.1 Jungle Cruise
2.1.2 Trader Sam's
2.2.1 Jungle Cruise
2.3.1 Skipper Canteen
5 References

History [ ]

Backstory [ ].

This attraction was seemingly set in Tomorrowland, California around 1986 though possibly earlier in the 1950s. [1] Guests departed in a nuclear explorer submarine to travel under the polar icecaps where they encountered sealife, a Graveyard of Lost Ships, and the ruins of Atlantis filled with (potentially hallucinated) mermaids and a sea-serpent.

Development history [ ]

The attraction was loosely inspired by the journey under the polar ice-caps of the USS Nautilus (SSN-571) completed in 1958. In the Magic Kingdom 's version of the attraction, he was replaced by Captain Nemo from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea . The attraction was later re-themed to Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage , where he was replaced by an Australian captain working for the N.E.M.O. Institute.

Jungle Cruise connections [ ]

Attractions [ ], jungle cruise [ ].

In the Amazon River Base is a book titled, "The Math of Liquid Space " by Dr. Durham. [2] The author is an apparent reference to Dave Durham, Creative Ride Engineering Executive at Walt Disney Imagineering who worked on Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage . [3]

Trader Sam's [ ]

Audio of the submarine captain announcing the voyage under the Polar Ice Caps plays when the Nautilus drink is ordered.

Prince Joachim 's U-Boat submarine is often interpreted as a tribute to Submarine Voyage.

Other connections [ ]

Skipper canteen [ ].

Captain Nemo has a book in the library titled, " The Polar Voyage ".

Submarine Voyage is one of various Tomorrowland attractions connected to the Jungle Cruise through books.

Gallery [ ]

References [ ]

↑ 1986 was original setting of Tomorrowland in Disneyland. Submarine Voyage was inspired by the 1958, "Operation Sunshine".
↑ http://www.imaginerding.com/2022/12/04/jungle-cruise-crews-join-the-pach/
↑ https://d23.com/behind-the-scenes-of-behind-the-attraction/
1 Frank Wolff
2 Lope de Aguirre
3 MacGregor Houghton

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Jungle Cruise’ review by Ziglet_mir • Letterboxd
Jungle Cruise (2021)
New Trailer and Movie Poster Released for Disney’s ‘Jungle Cruise
Jungle Cruise Review
Jungle Cruise (2021)

COMMENTS

Jungle Cruise (film)
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Joachim's U-boat
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Joachim's U-boat
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Was there anything that felt off from the spirit of the Jungle Cruise to you? The submarine was too weird. That felt like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The Jungle Cruise was in Adventureland, and ...
'Jungle Cruise': Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt face a submarine in ...
May 27 (UPI) -- Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt must deal with a submarine hot on their tail in the latest trailer for Disney 's Jungle Cruise. Johnson's Frank, a riverboat captain, and Bunt's Dr ...
Jungle Cruise trailer: The Rock and Emily Blunt on a Pirates-style
In Jungle Cruise, Plemons appears to be a villainous submarine captain with an unhinged and with an exaggerated German accent. He's in the latest trailer for a grant total of maybe two seconds ...
Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt in 'Jungle Cruise' Film Review
Jungle Cruise is a typically well-upholstered Disney package, shot by Flavio Labiano with vibrancy and lots of swooping camerawork in the action scenes. (Hawaiian locations stand in for the Amazon ...
Jungle Cruise Review: Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt Make It a Pleasure
Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt's Jungle Cruise is a charming throwback for Disney and Hollywood star vehicles, even when it takes on too much water. ... Submarine torpedoes are narrowly averted ...
Jungle Cruise (2021)
1916. Dreaming about saving countless lives and having another adventure, the feisty English feminist and doctor of botany, Dr Lily Houghton, embarks on a peril-laden mission to change the world. Along with her fashionable brother, MacGregor, Dr Houghton enlists the help of the arrogant, wisecracking riverboat skipper, Captain Frank Wolff, to ...
'Jungle Cruise' film review: a classic summer blockbuster souped up for
But throw in a few mad German submarine captains, an army of zombie conquistadors made out of bees, ... If the plot sounds messy, everything else in Jungle Cruise stays satisfyingly clean-cut ...
Review: 'Jungle Cruise' is made from spare parts of better movies but
Join Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt for the adventure of a lifetime on Disney's "Jungle Cruise," a rollicking thrill-ride down the Amazon. ... a mad German prince in a submarine, and Aguirre ...
Jungle Cruise review: "Johnson and Blunt keep this action vehicle
Jungle Cruise review: "Goes all out to entertain, but also exhausts" By Neil Smith. ... wait until you hear the one Jesse Plemons sports as the submarine-sailing Prince Joachim.
Jungle Cruise manages a tricky feat: adapting a Disneyland ...
Jungle Cruise the movie is an archaeological adventure that taps inspiration from 1999 ... charging through a small dock with a giant submarine, or Frank keeping a trained jaguar below deck. ...
Small Details You Missed In Jungle Cruise
In the "Jungle Cruise" film, Dr. Albert Falls is an offscreen character whose travel documents, maps, and an arrowhead are sought after by Blunt's Dr. Lily Houghton and Plemons' Prince Joachim in ...
Prince Joachim
Prince Joachim Franz Humbert of Prussia or more simply Prince Joachim is the main antagonist of the 2021 Disney live-action film Jungle Cruise. He is portrayed by Jesse Plemons. Prince Joachim is the youngest son of Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. Joachim would grow into a deranged and ambitious German aristocrat. He was active in World War I where he would command a small number of military ...
Jungle Cruise (2021)
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Jungle Cruise (Film)
Jungle Cruise is a 2021 adventure film directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, produced by Walt Disney Pictures and based on the Disney Theme Parks ride of the same name, and in turn loosely based on The African Queen, the film that inspired the ride.. Set during the early 20th century, a riverboat captain named Frank Wolff (Dwayne Johnson) takes Lily Houghton (Emily Blunt), an English scientist, and ...
Jungle Cruise
Jungle Cruise (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)Track: Sub AttackMusic by James Newton HowardLabel: Walt Disney RecordsRelease Date: July 30, 2021Jungle Cr...
Jungle Cruise
Jungle Cruise, formally named Jungle River Cruise, is a riverboat amusement ride located in the Adventureland themed section at various Disney theme parks worldwide. The attraction is a simulated riverboat cruise that travels along a waterway using a concealed guidance system through areas with Asian, African, and South American themes. Park guests board replica steam launches from a 1930s ...
Jungle Cruise Submarine Fight 60FPS
Most Important : Please *SUBSCRIBE Our Channel And Click On Bell 🔔 Button So That You Will Never Miss Any Videos From Us.Here in this video you can see the ...
Submarine Voyage
Submarine Voyage Through Liquid Space known more simply as Submarine Voyage is a defunct attraction which was open in Disneyland's Tomorrowland. This attraction was seemingly set in Tomorrowland, California around 1986 though possibly earlier in the 1950s. Guests departed in a nuclear explorer submarine to travel under the polar icecaps where they encountered sealife, a Graveyard of Lost Ships ...

Joachim's U-boat

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Jungle Cruise Cast: Where You’ve Seen The Actors Before

Dwayne Johnson (Frank Wolff)

Emily Blunt (Dr. Lily Houghton)

Jack Whitehall (MacGregor Houghton)

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Paul Giamatti (Nilo Nemolato)

Jesse Plemons (Prince Joachim)

Édgar Ramírez (Aguirre)

Veronica Falcón (Trader Sam)

Andy Nyman (Sir James Hobbs-Coddington)

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Small Details You Missed In Jungle Cruise

Dr. Albert Falls

Jungle Navigation Company Ltd.

Rosita the cockatoo

The Backside of Water

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Animatronic Hippos

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The African Queen

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Film / Jungle Cruise

Jungle Cruise contains examples of:

Submarine Voyage

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