Jungle Cruise

The movie starts with the Amazonian legend of the Tears of the Moon, a tree holding magical powers of healing and removing any curse within a single petal of its bloom. Many had traveled great distances to find it, but the most notable one is the conquistador Aguirre, who was determined to possess its power. Aguirre and his men fought the jungle that protected the magical tree until he was found by the tree's true guardians and nursed back to health by them. The moment he recovered, Aguirre demanded they give him the arrowhead which is the key to finding the tree. The guardians refused so the conquistador attacked them, but all he and his men got was a curse never to leave the sight of the Amazonian river again. MacGregor can be seen retelling the legend of the tree, showing its possible location on a map. He is presenting the ideas about the arrowhead to a society that holds it among other artifacts, and requesting access to it so that he could launch an expedition, hoping to find the Tears of the Moon. His sister Lily, the real author of his speech, can be seen up in the rafters mouthing the words. When she realizes that her brother won't convince the society to give them the arrowhead, Lily takes matters into her own hands, while MacGregor stalls them. She enters the hallways of the society with a map to take her to the room with the artifacts when she bumps into Prince Joachim. The man thinks that she's merely looking for the assistant's room so he lets her pass. Lily breaks into the room and changes into some male clothes to look more inconspicuous. She manages to find the crate containing the artifact and once she opens it and steals the arrowhead, Joachim is led into the room by one of the society members. He too is looking for the arrowhead, so when they open the crate and see the artifact missing, Joachim turns and sees Lily trying to escape the room. He tells the men to stop her, but she manages to fight them all off in daring and creative ways, showing both her physical skill and intelligence. In the end, it's Joachim that stops her, sending Lily flinging on library steps out of the window. She holds on tight as Joachim loosens the string on the steps, sending Lily hurling even farther towards the street. He asks her to give him the arrowhead if she wants his help so Lily throws Joachim the box then drops into the bus her brother managed to stop for her benefit. Joachim opens it only to find the arrowhead gone. The society member tries to apologize to him for losing the artifact but the prince, after learning who Lily is, just kills all of them. Later, Lily and MacGregor are packing to go on their expedition to the Amazonian river and find the tree, with the glorified notion that it will help them cure the world of disease. With the entire route planned out, all they have left is to find is a skipper to take them through the river. Cut to the Amazon sometime later, in the middle of a cruise taking a group of English tourists along the river. The skipper of this particularly banged-up vessel is Frank, a grifter who has designed his entire cruise on the premise that everything in the Amazon can kill you, just to swindle a little bit more money from his passengers. He employs all kinds of tricks and schemes to convince the tourists they're having a risky adventure, even paying a tribe to help him lie. Meanwhile, Lily and MacGregor arrive in the little town by the Amazon where Frank has set up his operation. They are also being followed by the prince's men. She's excited to find a skipper for their travel and runs out to find Nilo, who seems to own most of the boats in the dock. Nilo, on the other hand, goes to have a talk with Frank, who's just docked his boat and asks him to pay what he owes him. When Frank can't pay everything, Nilo takes his engine and locks it away, saying that he'll give it back when he pays in full. MacGregor and Lily separate to find Nilo, when she finds herself standing in front of his office, talking to Frank instead. He has broken into the office to steal the key to retrieve his engine and pretends to be Nilo so Lily doesn't suspect he's up to no good. When Lily explains that she needs someone to take her downriver and that she has a lot of money, Frank opens the door. She storms inside and immediately tells him where she needs to go. Frank still pretends to be Nilo as he tells Lily that the place she wants to go to is dangerous, and asks her where she got the map. She takes pride in it, saying that it was drawn by Aguirre's cartographer some 400 years ago and that it belonged to her father who used to tell her about the legend. Frank laughs at her and proposes a different kind of adventure. Lily notices that he was trying to get into the box with the key to his boat so she unlocks it for him. That convinces Frank to take the job so he leads Lily into the restaurant to seal the deal. As they haggle about the price for the journey, MacGregor shows up with the real Nilo. Lily says goodbye to Frank when she realizes that she's been swindled and he's able to see the arrowhead hanging around her neck. After seeing it, he's determined to get her as a client and keeps dropping his price, saying he's the only one that can get her there. Suddenly, a jaguar walks into the restaurant and while Nilo runs to hide, Frank protects MacGregor and Lily from the animal, struggling with it and eventually outsmarting it with a steak. The way Frank deals with the jaguar convinces Lily that he's the right man for the job and she hires him on the spot. Later, Frank picks up the siblings from the dock, but another problem occurs. Lily gets kidnapped by some locals for Joachim and Frank sails the boat out with MacGregor to escape Nilo's men. Fortunately, Lily manages to escape her captors fast through an elaborate run around the dock and is finally picked up by Frank and MacGregor in the boat. As they sail away, Joachim is informed that Lily wasn't captured so he orders his men to surface the submarine. He's adamant about getting to the tree because he thinks it will aid Germany in WW1. First, Joachim shoots at the boat, but when that fails he aims a torpedo on them. With a slick maneuver, Frank saves the boat from the torpedo as the submarine's propeller gets caught in a rope and it's hurled toward the dock, destroying all of Nilo's ships. Frank and his passengers are finally on their way toward the magical tree. While MacGregor isn't quite enjoying his time in the scorching Sun, Lily loves every moment of being on the river. She gets excited at every creature roaming around the boat and films all she can with her handheld camera, including the burly Frank. He's a curious man so he has a go at the camera himself, revealing a possible attraction toward Lily. She doesn't give him much time to relax, however, and demands that he direct the ship toward a more dangerous, but faster, route. Frank gives her a hard time about it, though since Lily insists, he decides to let her have her way. Later, Frank anchors the boat for the night so the engine can rest. MacGregor turns in for the night, as Frank and Lily spend a little bit more time talking on the deck and warming up to each other. However, MacGregor has an unfortunate encounter with Proxima, leading the big cat right up to the deck. Frank tells Proxima to heel and she starts licking MacGregor's face. Lily gets really upset with Frank when she realizes that she is Frank's pet and any trust that she might have gained in him, dissipates momentarily. Meanwhile, Joachim changes course as well intending to find the cursed conquistadors to help him find the way to the tree. When he arrives at the place where Aguirre and his men were captured with the curse, Joachim approaches the conquistador's body and drops a little bit of river water on it to awaken it. Two snakes appear out of the body that are a part of Aguirre and through them, he makes a deal with Joachim to find the arrowhead, so they can both get what they're after. The snake swears on the deal and Joachim releases the conquistador and his men from their prison. The next day, Frank and his passengers finally arrive at the rapids. As they move through the unsafe waters, Frank manages to keep them afloat and Lily insists they continue on that route, no matter how frightened and awful she feels. The boat almost makes an insane drop during their journey in the rapids, terrifying all of them, but Frank successfully maneuvers it back to calmer waters. Even though the boat is settled, none of its passengers are, so they all vomit on the side of its bow, including Proxima. Later, as Frank and MacGregor gather trees to fuel the engine, the brother confesses his reasons to join Lily's expedition, even though he isn't much of an adventurer like her. After he realized that he was gay, Lily was the only one in their family to stay at his side and for that, he would follow her anywhere. Meanwhile, Lily breaks into Frank's quarters and makes a curious discovery. When Frank gets back to the boat, Lily confronts him about all the materials and maps she's found on the tree in his cabin, thinking that he's after it himself. Frank tells her that it might have been the case before, but not for a long time. He says that it was also his reason to come to the Amazon, searching for its magic, though he was never able to find it. Suddenly, the boat is ambushed by one of Frank's paid tribes and they carry on the rouse for Lily and MacGregor for a little bit. Frank plays translator between Lily and the chief until Lily takes things too far and the chief decides to stop the charade. Lily and MacGregor aren't too understanding about it when they find out. Sometime later, Lily asks the chief to help her translate the markings on the arrowhead. She tells Lily the markings mean that the one seeking the Tear of the Moon must turn water into stone and mend a broken heart. The tree must be under the rare crying Moon to produce the special bloom, which according to the woman will happen in two days. She says that to get to the tree one must follow the serpent that bites its own tail, an image that Lily remembers seeing on the map and promptly finds there. Lily thinks that she can get to the place with a canoe and without Frank so she pays him the rest of the money. That night, the village gets attacked by the cursed conquistadors looking for the arrowhead. Frank, MacGregor, and Lily each fight a different conquistador. One of them manages to snatch the arrowhead from Lily's neck and give it to Aguirre. The conquistador tries to flee, but Frank stops him and struggles with him for the artifact. Aguirre stabs him and before he falls down through the trees, he steals the arrowhead back and throws it to Lily. The chief saves Lily and MacGregor, getting them safely down and telling Lily to run by getting out of sight of the river where the conquistadors can't reach her. As Lily runs, Aguirre's snakes catch up to her and grab her. But before he can do anything to Lily, the jungle drags him and his men back to the river. As the conquistadors gather themselves up, they realize they need Joachim's help to get to Lily. One of Aguirre's men sends his bees to the prince to inform him of their situation. The following morning, Lily finds Frank, happily thinking that he's alive and well. When the chief and MacGregor show up, he notices a dagger protruding out of Frank's back. Frank has no choice but to finally tell them the truth that he was actually one of Aguirre's conquistadors. Before he can explain anything further, Lily has to pull out the dagger from his chest. When she takes it out without hurting Frank one bit, MacGregor faints after witnessing it. Lily later wakes him up to say goodbye, since she will be traveling the rest of the journey with Frank alone. Meanwhile, the cursed conquistador's bees arrive at Joachim's submarine and he welcomes them inside. One of the bees shows him the location of the arrowhead on the map and they manage to have an entire conversation to the amazement of his subordinates. Back at the boat and on their journey, Frank and Lily talk about his life during the last 400 years. He tells her that he was Aguirre's best friend so he set off to the Amazon with him to find the Tear of the Moon because Aguirre needed to save his daughter from dying. He worked as his cartographer, in fact, he was the one that drew her map of the river. Frank followed Aguirre to the depths of the jungle to find the magical tree petal, but once he saw what the conquistador was ready to do to the tribe that healed them, he realized he couldn't be a part of it. Frank stopped him from killing the chieftain’s daughter who managed to escape with the arrowhead while the chieftain cursed all of them with his last breath. As the years went by, Frank and Aguirre fought over and over again, until he trapped him and his men in a cave where the jungle couldn't return them to the river. For 300 years the jungle ravaged their bodies, turning them into the monster they are. Lily listens to him carefully and asks him what he did for those last 3 centuries. Frank tells her that he built the town where she found him, gaining and losing friends on the way when he decided to search for the Tears of the Moon. He built his boat and searched the entire river, finding nothing, until one day he just stopped looking and began giving cruises to tourists. Over the years he kept finding strays, as he calls his big cats and kept taking care of them one after the other, ergo the name Proxima which means next. Meanwhile, prince Joachim catches up to MacGregor with his submarine. He takes MacGregor in and blackmails him into sharing the location of the Tear of the Moon. MacGregor shows him the location on the map and Joachim kills the conquistador's bees so they don't share the information with their master. As Frank and Lily are sailing towards the same location, he tells her what will happen when he finally gets a petal from the tree. He says he would have two choices and he will take the one that will finally grant him some rest. The next day, they arrive at an impasse at the river and Lily thinks that they have reached the point where water turns to stone as the arrowhead stated. Frank dives into the river and finds an ancient chamber with a lever, but dives back up to tell Lily that she will have the misfortune to open it because he can't fit inside. She freaks out a little since she can't swim, but eventually Frank convinces her that there is no other way and they dive in together. Once she's inside the chamber, she pushes a lever that closes the door and when she panics, Frank gives her a little boost of air by kissing her. Lily manages to push the ancient lever down, while Frank is swarmed by piranhas. The water begins to run out of the cove, but Lily has no way of getting out until the water is fully drained. When Frank finally gets to her, thinking that she's drowned, she awakens and slaps him for leaving her under. As they get dressed they realize that they've found the location of the tree, but there's one more problem revealed when the rest of the water drains from the cove. Joachim is there as well with MacGregor as his prisoner. To make matters even worse, one of the conquistador's bees has been following them, goes back to report the location to the cursed men. Joachim takes the arrowhead from Lily and makes Frank take them inside the cave with the tree on his steamboat. When they reach the tree, it looks like it's been dead for centuries. Joachim tells Lily to make the tree bloom because she's one of the only people that know how to do it, but when she refuses, Frank says that he'll do that for a single petal in return. Joachim agrees to the terms but keeps MacGregor as collateral. Frank gets the arrowhead from the prince and tries to find a way to open the tree. When he doesn't succeed at once, Joachim makes Lily help him in return for Frank's petal. The two of them working in unison, soon discover that the arrowhead isn't that at all, but in fact a heart. According to the instructions they break it apart and find a magical piece inside. They place that piece on one side of the relief and the mended heart on the other. The magic of the tree is instantly visible as it begins to bloom in the light of the Moon. Once the tree has fully bloomed, Lily shoots Frank, sending him falling back to the bottom of the cave. Joachim sends his men to pluck the petals from the tree before the crying Moon sets. In the meantime, Frank saves MacGregor from Joachim's men and they take back the ship with a little help from Proxima. Lily jumps up on the tree to get a petal, but she barely manages to run fast enough to grab one as the Moon sets. When she finally plucks one Tear, she falls down the tree and Joachim is there to blackmail her again, the petal for her brother's life and hers. Suddenly, the tree begins to fall apart so she drops the petal and grabs onto the prince, saving herself. Frank manages to grab hold of the petal as well. The last thing before the adventure is over, the conquistadors arrive at the tree as well and kill the prince. They go after Lily as well, but Frank shows them the petal and gets them to follow him. He leaves MacGregor on the surface and makes Proxima stay with him to protect both him and Lily. She drops from the tree next to her brother and they see Frank aiming to crash the boat into the ancient monument. The conquistadors fight Frank for the petal, but he manages to fight all of them off as they come after him. Lastly, he battles with Aguirre, who asks him for the petal once more, but it is revealed to be in MacGregor's possession, so he can give it to Lily. The boat crashes into the ancient monument and stops the river water from coming inside the cave. The jungle takes the conquistadors, including Frank, and turns them back into stone because it can't return them to the river. Lily arrives at the spot and decides to give the petal to Frank so it will break his curse, leaving her dreams about helping humanity asunder. When nothing happens, she and her brother leave, with Proxima waiting patiently before her master. Lily hears her roars as Frank comes back to life and runs into his arms. Suddenly, they see that the magical tree has gifted them one more petal to take from it. Later, they return to the town and give Nilo the tiny raft they were able to use to sail back. And in the final image of the film, they have all returned to London together. Lily and Frank can be seen driving through London in a car, with Proxima in the back.