Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt

Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra

Disney, out now

Dr Lily Houghton enlists wisecracking skipper Frank Wolff to take her down the Amazon in his ramshackle boat. Together, they search for an ancient tree that holds the power to heal.

There’s something so good-natured and goofy about Jaume Collet-Serra’s (Orphan) adventure romp that it’s easy to forgive the derivative nature of its plot and some of its clunky story mechanics. Essentially a star vehicle (literally) for Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and Emily Blunt (A Quiet Place), Jungle Cruise takes us down the Amazon on a spirited boat, facing off against a waterfall, piranha, CGI animals and zombie conquistadors.

This is all highly reminiscent of the output of period adventures post-Raiders of the Lost Ark, when every studio wanted to pair up a plucky duo in throwback Saturday morning serial thrills, giving us everything from High Road to China and King Solomon’s Mines to Bring ’Em Back Alive and Tales of the Gold Monkey. Into this established formula come Johnson and Blunt, who may not share any great chemistry, but are having a whale of a time.

The duo are joined by Lily’s irritating, prissy brother MacGregor (comedian Jack Whitehall) who’s weak and cowardly to counter his sister’s pluck and guile. They’re supported by cursed plunderer Aguirre (Edgar Ramirez, The Girl on the Train),  German Prince Joachim (Jesse Plemons, Battleship) who is seeking a fabled artefact to win the war (sounds familiar?) and businessman Nilo (Paul Giamatti, Planet of the Apes), who is somewhat wasted in an undeveloped role.

The movie is based on the theme park ride that opened Disneyland’s Adventureland in 1955, and fans will recognise the awful puns of the skipper (at one point a child says ‘make him stop!’) and the fake wild animals. As theme park ride adaptations go, it’s more Pirates of the Caribbean than The Haunted Mansion, and with a rollicking score by James Newton Howard, it whiles away a couple of undemanding hours.

Verdict: You’ve seen this all before in The Mummy and Pirates of the Caribbean series, but it’s also a load of frothy summertime nonsense that has no pretensions of being anything else than a family, popcorn crowd-pleaser. 7/10

Nick Joy