Curious George 3: Back to the Jungle is a 2015 traditionally animated film adaptation of the children's stories by H.A. Rey and Margret Rey. It is a triquel to the 2009 straight to DVD film Curious George 2: Follow That Monkey!. It made its television premiere on PBS Kids on August 17, 2015. The film served as the series finale to the Curious George TV series, which ended on April 1st of that year.
Plot[]
In the beginning of the movie, we see George (Frank Welker) taking his yellow guardian; Ted (Jeff Bennett) to the city park to fly a kite on a very windy day. But however after Ted lets go of the kite string, George was started flying meeting the other people, children and animals. When George meets Ted right next to the popcorn stand, Ted gave the angry people the payment cards and took George to the Bloomsberry Museum to get himself clean up while George plays around with the statues.
One moment later, Captain Hal Houston (voiced by John Goodman) and his assistant; Tech Andrew (voiced by Alexander Polinsky) came by, and he asks George to help completing the very important space mission (which is putting the RDS control to locate the satellite tower to the leaky dam in Central Africa). At first, Ted quickly disagrees (thinking it wouldn't be a good idea), then changes his mind, accepting Houston's request and letting George completes his training in the GSA "without a hitch".
After the training, before blasting off into the galaxy, Ted gave George a photograph as George's company since he couldn't come with him. In outer space, "Space Monkey" George had manage to grab the RSD control from the inside of the space satellite. Everyone (except the nervous Ted watching George on screen) was full of good cheer as Andrew located the capsule back to earth bringing George back home.
During lunch break, George goes monkeying around with a water squirter and accidentally squirted on the buttons, causing the capsule into a "free fall". This freaks out Ted, and he and Andrew both ordered George to immediately hit the eject button to escape, and George was suddenly parachuted softly onto a branch in his current home of Africa and swung over the animals (inspired from the 2006 film) to have explore and have fun. Meanwhile, Ted, refusing to lose his monkey, goes solo on his own to find George by himself while Houston and Andrew were stand put to get location calls in the headquarter tent.
Ted then anxiously learns how to fly a water plane, but afterwards he crashes between both boulders on a shore and started to find George. Meanwhile, George was having fun with the animals, rescuing a baby rhino from a large puddle of mud and swinging vines. The next day, George rode off with the giraffes as the zebras rode on, while an exhausted Ted sat underneath a cliff. After few seconds, George and Ted were finally together again at last and started heading back to the headquarters with Houston and Andrew.
But, George (who refused to learn about "caution") however tries to show Ted his animal friends and has being playing around in the jungle, but a furious Ted, sending him over the edge, tells his monkey in his fit of anger and first time scolding "Bad George!", making George feel guilty and hurt. Just as Ted was placing his foot down, he was suddenly being unexpectedly caught in a trap, ambushed by a gorilla Seymour; who is scaring him with his loud roar and growling, and a woman named Naja Kulinda (voiced by Angela Bassett); who is an African doctor, mistakenly thought a horrified Ted was an animal poacher.
She took him and an enraged George (after disobeying Ted's begging and refusing to tell Dr. Kulinda the situation) to her tree-house filled with animals, where Ted, sitting with Seymour while been tied up and refusing to let Dr. Kulinda adopt George, apologizes for calling him bad, any other such nonsense he had said, using his angry actions and he also said that he is "the best George in the whole world". George, who now feel understood, happily forgives Ted with a cuddle as Seymour tearfully watches the incident until Dr. Kulinda shows up, disgusting her real name to "Dr. African Scientist Worker Lady".
Then, soon after Dr. Kulinda realizes that George was really "a monkey astronaut" and Ted was the museum director and was George's guardian, she, feeling completely understand and owning him her apology, orders Seymour to unleash Ted and shows him and George the meaning of an African Lifetime. Soon enough, both Dr. Kulinda and Ted both saw George's space capsule and the dam from the tower treetop. Back with the headquarters, Houston and Andrew were on a search themselves to find George and Ted before the storm arrived. But Andrew, however, warned him about the storm's arrival approaching to the location, so they head back to the tent.
Back at the tree-house, Dr. Kulinda and Seymour were preparing for the storm, while Ted, George along with the help of Strich (Dr. Kulinda's ostrich) rode off to find George's capsule, where George grabs the RDS control and the radio phone. After that, Ted managed to call Houston on the radio, and Andrew puts in the location to the leaky dam. Soon, Ted and George rode on a log flow to the big river (noticing that they heading the wrong path). Then, George seeks in the help of the groups of animals to push out Ted's water plane out of the boulders.
When Ted and George finally arrived to the bridge and the tower, a clever-fied and smart Ted, deciding to throw cautions in the wind, creates a larger kite out of his map and George placed the control to the satellite tower and involves the dam. Ted announced that he'll go on the adventure with George any time as his gratitude reward. Back home to Chicago, at the GSA, Houston awards George and Ted as heroes with their metals and Andrew gifted them with a pair of rocket boasters, where Ted and George flew in the sky and have an incredible flight.
Trivia[]
- This film was originally planned for a Blu-ray release in North America (as said in its first trailer), but that release was eventually cancelled when only the DVD release was announced. However, it did have a Blu-ray release in some international countries.
Sequel[]
A fourth film called Curious George: Royal Monkey, was released on DVD on September 10, 2019.