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Tarzan!

Review: 'Tarzan and the Lost City' is jungle rot

April 30, 1998
Web posted at: 6:05 p.m. EDT (1805 GMT)

From Reviewer Paul Tatara

(CNN) -- Paul see Tarzan movie. Tarzan movie bad. Paul not like Tarzan movie.

I should probably just leave it at that, but I'm obliged to write a more detailed review of "Tarzan and the Lost City," an exercise in incompetence that seems to have been constructed in a state of delirium by director Carl Schenkel. Either this guy doesn't have a clue or he got his hands on a glass of bad jungle water, but, regardless of the reason, you have to get down and work to come up with something this dreadfully awkward. Seems like he could have saved himself a lot of time and energy by holding a few of the shots for more than seven seconds, but what do I know? Those native drums can work you into a frenzy.

The title character is played by a chest, a set of abdominal muscles, and a loin that's covered, in true Tarzan fashion, by a cloth. The head that's resting on this configuration is billed as Casper Van Dien. Twelve-year-olds may remember that Van Dien was the lead block of granite in last year's "Starship Troopers." His condition here would suggest that he didn't spend that paycheck on Mars bars, but acting lessons also must have been way down on the shopping list. I'll bet there's a fancy car parked out there somewhere, though. Van Dien's British accent consists of speaking exactly like an L.A. gym freak, except that he says "'tis" every now and then. It's far less convincing than his abdomen.

Theatrical trailer of "Tarzan and the Lost City"
(4Mb QuickTime movie)

So what you end up with is "Tarzan 90210." At the beginning of the movie, our monkey-raised hero is in England where he's about to marry Jane (played by Jane March, hubba-hubba cutie with no discernible talent, female division) and ascend to the mansion as Lord Greystoke. But wait! A jungle priest has sent him a telepathic message! Greedy white men are pillaging their way through Africa, and the elephants, needless to say, are getting their tusks yanked. Tarzan's presence is required elsewhere, so he sheds his fancy clothes and steamships down to the old neighborhood ... with Jane secretly following close behind. That way her clothes can get all wet and clingy when she falls off a vine into the water.

Once he hits the bushes and re-makes friends with the tribesman, Tarzan has to torment the group of pillagers by rising out of the water as they get drunk, and tossing their hard-captured ivory into the river. He also climbs around in the trees while they're out being bad guys, sometimes setting those Tarzan traps that wrap around legs and fling people into the air, and sometimes just yelling and jumping on them like a near-naked frat guy on a panty raid.

Schenkel's inability to film an action sequence shines during these confrontations. Everything is shot in such tight close-ups that you can't tell what the hell's going on, or even where the participants are standing in relation to each other, for that matter. It's just a bunch of pumping elbows and people going "AAAAHHHH." That would not include the people in the theater, who were mostly laughing. I couldn't see their elbows.

I don't think stock footage was used to create the illusion that the actors are lounging around in front of hippos and zebras, but it would have been nice if some of those actors had actually been in the same frame with the animals when the second-unit camera crew was out harassing them. Instead, you get cuts between the beasts and the actors, like that scene in "Cannonball Run II" where Frank Sinatra isn't actually in the same room with Burt Reynolds.

And the fake apes! Holy cow, these are the worst monkey suits I've seen since my senior prom back in 1981, except that these are hairy and brown, rather than smooth and powder blue. The audience would just hoot every time they showed up. They're the most ridiculous, and therefore best, thing in the movie, just a little more mind-boggling than Van Dien's mugging as he "speaks animal" to a caged lion. Van Dien "ooohhs," "eeekkks," and "cahooey-hooey-hooeys" while the lion looks peeved to have to be playing the scene with him.


"Tarzan and the Lost City" contains some cartoon violence, and no profanity. Lots of monkey screams, though. It's suitable for children or unbelievably stupid adults. Unbelievably stupid children have found their "Citizen Kane." Rated PG. 83 minutes.


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