Beat the heat with a cool Amazonian adventure

Cut to 400 years back and the murderous Spanish conquest of South America. Conquistador Aguirre (Edgar Ramirez, not recalling Werner Herzog's Aguirre in any way) and his band of merry men were struck by illness. They were saved by a local tribe who had used a magic flower from the tree as the elixir, but went on to betray the benefactors and were eventually trapped in the jungle.

Enter this same jungle German Prince Joachim (Jesse Plemons, gloriously chewing up the scenery), in search of the blossom for the German army (the story unfolds during WWI, though you would never know it) and it's a three-way race to the treasure. Who will prevail? Hint: the film's star is The Rock.

If any of that sounds vaguely like The Mummy (plucky female scientist/adventurer), Raiders of the Lost Ark (a hunt for a supernatural all-powerful artefact), Jumanji (a jungle), The African Queen (a salty riverboat captain) or any combination of parts from each, you are not imagining things. This is one of Disney's most Frankensteined films. Jungle Cruise tries to stay modern with some low-key progressiveness involving MacGregor, and the story does its level best to make Lily's entitlement justified, but the film's "business" tone lingers.

Still, it's bright, shiny (mostly), swift-moving top-shelf family entertainment, available in an air-conditioned space during a heat wave. Is Jungle Cruise going to make a splash? When was the last time Disney made a bad business decision?