Survival Expert Analyzes Dwayne Johnson’s Role in Disney’s Jungle Movie

Survival expert Hazen Audel reviews scenes from Disney’s Jungle Cruise movie starring Dwayne Johnson, and it actually gets a half-decent grade.

Jungle Cruise‘s piranha scenes get put under the microscope by a survival expert, and the Dwayne Johnson Disney movie is actually fairly accurate. Released in 2021, Jungle Cruise is based on the Walt Disney theme park ride, with Johnson starring as captain Frank Wolff, who ferries Emily Blunt’s Lily Houghton through the Amazon in search of the Tree of Life. The film’s reviews were somewhat mixed and it underperformed at the box office, but Jungle Cruise 2 was announced in August 2021.

Now, as news about the Jungle Cruise sequel remains hard to come by, survival expert Hazen Audel analyzes scenes from the film in a recent video interview for Insider.

The expert focuses mostly on the film’s depiction of piranhas, with Johnson’s character having a fairly intense encounter with the species in a river. Check out Audel’s full explanation and ranking out of 10 below:

“That is the great thing about piranhas. They are an abundant fish, and they’re very easy to cach because you just need some sort of a meat source and then a hook. That’s generally the first thing you’re going to catch. Catching a piranha with a net is pretty slim, but there’s a lot of catfish and other kinds of fish that are really sluggish.

“The thing about piranhas is that they kind of read off of each other’s behavior. If one fish gets really excited, takes a bite, there’s blood in the water, it will start exciting other fish and pretty soon it starts to become a chain reaction.

“There’s well over 20 different species of piranha in the Amazon, all specialists in eating different ways, but the most dangerous ones are the red-bellied piranhas, which is probably what they’re trying to depict here. That is fairly realistic. It would start as one piranha and then it would be hundreds of piranhas. You’d get the fuck out of that water, that’s for sure.

“I would rate this clip as a seven [out of 10]. You have to look at the probably of this happening. That’s almost a wives’ tale of you being devoured by piranha in water. It’s just incredibly remote.”

How Was Jungle Cruise Received?

The Disney Movie Continues A Dwayne Johnson Trend

Jungle Cruise‘s Rotten Tomatoes score currently sits at 63%, which certainly means the film wasn’t critically-reviled, but it’s still awfully close to a “rotten” designation. The audience score, however, is a very high 92%, suggesting that there’s a clear divide between each group’s consensus.

The critics’ response, generally speaking, includes complaints that have been levied at a number of recent Disney movies, including some of the company’s recent live-action remakes. Jungle Cruise just feels fairly by-the-numbers, featuring outlandish, CGI-heavy set pieces that do little to set the film apart from other efforts in the same genre. The Jungle Cruise cast, however, is cited as a high point in many reviews, with Blunt’s performance, in particular, and her chemistry with Johnson, singled out as one of the movie’s big strengths.

By contrast, the audience response to Jungle Cruise would suggest that many viewers were delighted by the film’s comedy, lighthearted action, and general sense of adventure. This actually continues a trend for Johnson, whose recent movies like Black Adam, Red Notice, Jumanji: The Next Level, Skyscraper, and Rampage, among others, score significantly higher with audiences than with critics. It remains to be seen whether the Jungle Cruise sequel will continue this streak, but those looking to revisit the 2021 action adventure movie can currently check it out on Disney Plus.