Watch Tarzan the Ape Man For Free

Highly Overrated But Still Good

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Bo Derek was no doubt one of the most popular young women in the late 70s and early 80s, but that was more for her sex appeal and not her acting talent, as this sorrowful pile of s**t shows.This is basically another adaptation of the classic Tarzan stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This time, however, the story is overly-sexualized with Derek doing almost nothing except posing so the camera will get a proper shot of her body, regardless of how many clothes she has on, doing some really terrible acting and speaking most of the film's worst dialogue, and eventually just ends up staying with Tarzan at the end where she will remain half-naked and getting laid by him for the rest of her life (I assure you, that's NOT every young woman's dream, especially when it comes to Tarzan).Derek is Jane Parker, who is joining her father, played by Richard Harris, in a way where I can't tell whether he really tried but failed, was drunk, or just phoned it in, on an expedition to find an inland sea and an elephant graveyard. Along the way, she meets the king of the jungle himself and she becomes attracted to him, not because he is a man who doesn't speak and lives in the jungle peacefully with wild animals, but because she thinks he looks good. Tarzan ultimately has to prove his love to her by fighting off a bunch of native tribesmen and their chieftain, who is getting ready to make babies with Jane after she and her father are forcefully captured by his men.I know I gave away the ending, but trust me: you'll be glad I told you before deciding to watch it. Where do I possibly begin? Well, I'll start by saying that even though the movie takes place in Africa, you constantly see Asian elephants and orangutans all over the place; that's because this movie was shot mostly in Sri Lanka, a small island off the subcontinent of India. Also, if Derek and her director husband, John, were trying to be subtle about Jane wanting to be sexually aroused by someone like Tarzan, they failed so miserably. In one scene where she's talking with Tarzan about being a virgin, she's peeling a banana. Really, Jane? You had to be that obvious? Additionally, I'd like to say that it's obvious why people criticize excessive nudity in films; it can distract people from the story (especially if the story is bad).The direction is just some of the worst I've seen yet in a movie. In one scene where Tarzan is saving Jane from a python, the film suddenly goes slow-motion and the film goes all over the place, so much so that I can't tell what's happening with Tarzan, Jane, or the python. In fact, a good deal of the action is in slow-motion and it gets tedious and extremely boring. Did John Derek think that it would be a good way to keep tension up? It takes more effort than that. Additionally, Tarzan, played blandly by Miles O' Keefe, makes no sound throughout the movie except for the famous Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan calls, which are used over and over and over again to the point where you get sick of it. The music ranges from o.k. to mediocre, to bad, to just plain cheesy.The dialogue is trashy too, and the acting makes it even more cringe- worthy. It can be contradictory too; at one point, Harris's James Parker remarks how strong a girl Jane is when he and his group are looking for her. Sorry, James, but your daughter is quite the weakling: she's been kidnapped by the king of the jungle, can't even pet a dog without falling into the water, and later she gets stripped naked and gets scrubbed down, and later painted white in a ceremony (I guess) where the chieftain will make babies with her. The situations surrounding the dialogue don't make sense either. When Jane asks him to tell her a story as she's being painted, he starts reciting Humpty Dumpty. No comment on that.I could go on and on about everything wrong with this movie, but that would take more than a thousand words, so I'll end with this: Tarzan the Ape Man with Bo Derek is trash; trash that even fans of Bo Derek's sex appeal should skip. Let me reach out to those fans: seeing ten minutes of Bo Derek nude and wearing revealing outfits every other time does not mean you are watching a good movie.

Tarzan the Ape Man (1981): Dir: John Derek / Cast: Bo Derek, Miles O'Keefe, Richard Harris, John Phillip Law, Steve Strong: Shameless dreck right down to its dim photography. Title indicates that the film is about a man with limited social understanding. He may require extreme psychotherapy after this film. Plot doesn't matter because it would make better toilet paper than a script. A escapade through the jungle by explorers who hear various wailings and realize that it isn't a parakeet. The first problem with this stupid film is its advertizing aimed at a younger audience yet it seems more interested in Bo Derek's nude scenes. Director John Derek takes a half hour to showcase Tarzan wrestling a python. The snake drapes down upon Derek who can clearly escape had she used common sense but she is required to coil up in it and scream endlessly. She cleans up Tarzan with hints of sexual activity, which leads to his fondling her. Derek's overacting is backed by horrid work by Richard Harris, John Phillip Law, and Miles O'Keefe as perhaps the worst Tarzan ever. The hidden purpose is to showcase Derek in various sexual positions and exploit the hormones of anyone who likely shouldn't see it due to its marketing appeal to younger viewers. It is not something that she will likely wish to have showcased at any career gala. Frankly, the best place for this film is underneath an elephant's foot. Score: 1 / 10

This is a re-imagining of Tarzan in the era of the Soloflex and Apocalypse Now. There's nothing inherently wrong with using films eased moral constraints to portray an erotic side to the Tarzan legend. There's nothing inherently wrong with the premise that Tarzan doesn't speak. There's plenty wrong with suggesting a woman who could get herself to an African jungle in 1910, could be this offensively stupid and plastic. Bo has as few lines as possible when bodies are explored because this movie is merely a video-centerfold, as neutral as possible so that you can project yourself and your lecherous fantasies into the project. If it succeeds anywhere it's in the implication that National Geographic has influenced the way the imagery of a Tarzan movie might be constructed.It would be ridiculous to argue that movies shouldn't employ the sexual tease as ONE of many tools to draw in viewers. Some really great film moments incorporate it. But this move is at the opposite end of the spectrum - the tease is the only thing going on here; at the time of its release and now. You sit through awful, dumb scenes that offer no interest, and miles of footage of bad acting to drool over the next peek at either of two bodies. Yes... Bo Derek and Miles O'Keeffe are beautiful (um, congratulations on having a working libido.) but if that's your excuse for giving this schlock a good rating you really should visit a porn store and stock up. There's only a hairs-breadth difference between the two formats and (I'm just guessing here) a horny viewer would probably really enjoy the latter. The question is whether a mainstream movie is the best venue in the marketplace for viewers to seek out products that satisfy lust alone.As a showman, John Derek successfully capitalized on the sexual mystique developed over wife Bo in the movie "10"; and created a media event out of a shallow project whose only merit was the hotness of the two leads. The movie itself was beside the point. He was about 20 years ahead of his time in thinking audiences would applaud him for making an insipid, shallow movie that was only about showcasing superficiality.As a director, John Derek appears to require only that Mrs. Derek look pleasant, empty and hump-able in every scene. It's hideously shot. The camera placement is annoying. In terms of editing, the entire 'wipe' catalog is exhausted. The credit sequence is garish. And it's a toss-up as to who commits the worse screen offense; Bo Derek who's such a bimbo that she can't even figure out how to play a bimbo, or Richard Harris who shouts every line (as he likes to do) until you want to shoot him. At least with Bo you can imagine her blaming some horny writer for shortchanging her.

there are three kinds of bad films - the cheap, the boring, and the tasteless. the only really bad movies are boring and tasteless. boring films are just, well, boring - if you don't leave quickly enough, you fall asleep.tasteless films actually have their defenders; but the fact remains that they are masturbatory aids for very sick people.only the cheap bad films are really funny, because the filmmakers wanted to make their films so desperately, they way-over-reached beyond their abilities and available resources.Bo Derek is just naturally boring and tasteless; fortunately, fate and a lack of funds and skill redeem her by making her seem cheap as well. this film is hilarious and it may well be the last really funny-bad film ever made.i first saw this in a theater, may god forgive me; i was laughing so hard i was rolling off my seat, and so too with most of the rest of the audience.it's clear that Derek and her husband-promoter, conceived of this film as, partly, a satire; unfortunately, the dereks clearly lacked any of the necessary resources to pull that off; consequently, the 'satirical' element comes off as some school-girl's impression of some gay young man's impression of frank gorshin's impression of the riddler in batman trying to pretend he's robin - it doesn't fly over our heads, it has no clue where any human head might be.on the other hand, there are some supposedly serious moments in this film - it is supposed to be an action film, remember - that are so astoundingly cheesy, one wonders if someone squirted spoiled milk in one's eye.as for Derek's infamous tendency to reveal her breasts - i can't imagine a less erotic nudity photographic display, she is so weird looking with those broad shoulders, i can't imagine what any one ever saw in her.as for the plot - such as it is - well, it isn't; Derek chases around Africa, and god alone knows why. then her father - Harris - pretends to act in some maniacal puppet-show, and then of course there's the hunk'o'Tarzan that seems to have wondered in from advertisement without knowing that the subject's changed - probably because he hasn't seen a script - apparently no one has.negligible camera work, shoddy editing - if it weren't for the 3-way with the chimp, the film would be unbearable -as it is, it's a real hoot.