Is It Worth the Watch?

I was in the mood for a wacky comedy, so I chose 1997’s spoof, George of the Jungle. While sticking closely to the “throw in any joke you can think of” sensibility of the original 1967 animated television series, this slapstick farce is often quite funny, even if routinely uninspired and less witty than you probably would hope for. Why produce a live action version of a beloved animated series if you’re just going to repeat what was there before without expanding on the ideas? 

A nearly beat by beat satiric retelling of the Tarzan tale, a caucasian muscleman raised by apes in the jungle is discovered by a beautiful blonde woman on safari and whisked back to her hometown (in this case San Francisco) only for him to be befuddled by the marvels of modern engineering. Treachery (there’s always a villain) and romantic entanglements arise. 

Brendan Fraser as George (the take-off on Tarzan) offers an extremely funny performance, he is unfailingly charming and unrelentingly hot. Leslie Mann, as his love interest Ursula, seems a little lost, as if she took the role thinking this was going to be an entirely different kind of movie. Thomas Haden Church plays the villain without much distinction, Holland Taylor is hilariously uppity as Ursula’s society matron mother, and John Cleese is wasted as the voice of a talking ape, named Ape, who is smarter than anyone else and likes to read better books and philosophize. 

There are a few brief visual nods to famous movie scenes, including Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl and even Disney’s animated Lion King, but if those gags were going to be used, I wish the premise were better explored. 

I enjoyed this one, but I wanted more. There are some good laughs, but don’t expect sophistication. And … watch out for that tree!

Is It Worth The Watch? I laughed out-loud at this film, but not consistently. And I rolled my eyes nearly as many times.

1997

92 minutes

Starring – Brendan Fraser, Leslie Mann, John Cleese, Thomas Haden Church, Holland Taylor, Richard Roundtree, Willie Brown

Director – Sam Weisman

Screenplay – Dana Olsen, Audrey Wells

Source – the animated television series of the same name by Jay Ward and Bill Scott, which was in turn based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan books.