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Fresh and Exciting

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Blistering performances.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

I checked my watch as 'Tarzan and the Lost City' was wrapping up and I halfway expected another development to take place. If you cut out the opening and closing credits the movie is actually only about 70 minutes long. Ironically, even at that, this movie still overstays it's welcome.Not that it has much welcome to wear out mind you. The movie is actually a low-level sequel to the well-made 'Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan Lord of the Apes' and finds the ape man returning to Africa on the eve of his wedding to Jane nevermind that 'Greystoke' ended with out hero giving up civilization for Africa anyway.The title role is played by Casper Van Dien who has worked out, he has a proper tan, his teeth are brushed but I didn't buy him as Tarzan anymore that I would have bought him playing Jane. She by the way is played by Jane March (of 'The Lover' and 'Color of Night') playing a very rare role in which she keeps her clothes on.Anyway, just before he hears the ringing of wedding bells Tarzan has a vision of African people being plundered by bloodthirsty Englishmen and feels that he must go and save them. Jane feels that she must be by his side mostly because if she didn't Ms. March would draw a short paycheck.'Tarzan and the Lost City' was directed by the producer of 'Greystoke' and it shows. Everything that director Hugh Hudson fought to eliminate from the earlier film (the vine swinging; the yell; the chimp sidekick) in the name of giving true vision to Burrows indomitable hero is put back into place, not for literary sake but because it's the staple of all other Tarzan movies.All of this in the service of a movie that is over before your popcorn gets cold. There really isn't anything new here, we've seen it all before in every other Tarzan movie. Perhaps 'Tarzan and the Lost City' might work if you have in fact never seen a Tarzan movie. Or Superman. Or Batman. Or Indiana Jones, or Star Wars, or Star Trek or James Bond or The Wizard of Oz or The Lion King or . . . ah heck, just skip it.

Tarzan is my favorite fictional hero, so I was sure to see "Tarzan and the Lost City" after it was released to video in 1998. I was underwhelmed by the experience but, at the same time, it was okay and had some good points. Seeing it again, 15 years later, I feel the same way.Believe it or not, this is actually a sequel to 1984's competent and near-epic "Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes" (surely one of the longest titles in the history of cinema), but it doesn't measure up, not even close.For one, Casper Van Dien (Tarzan) and Jane March (Jane) can't hold a candle to Christopher Lambert and Andie MacDowell. Although Casper has the necessary noble look, buff-ness and ape-like agility for the role he has too much of a "pretty boy" thing going on, not to mention he's a little too short at 5'9", which may be average height for a man, but too short for Tarzan, especially when you consider that Tarzan spends a lot of time in his bare feet, which makes him look even shorter. At the end of the day, Van Dien isn't bad, but he doesn't measure up to the best Tarzan actors, like Lambert, Weissmuller and Ron Ely. Jane March is decent and spunky as Jane, but she doesn't do much for me. Still, while unexceptional, these two are acceptable in the roles as semi-interesting alternatives.My main beef is the mediocrity of it all. Unlike "Greystoke", this is clearly a small film -- nothing more than a quickly thrown-together "sequel" (I put that in quotes because it came out 14 years after the other film and features a totally different cast, and understandably so). Maybe the studio gave it the go-ahead because they caught word that Disney was going to release the animated "Tarzan" the next year and wanted to steal some of its thunder, I don't know.At only 84 minutes, the film lacks the nigh epic nature of "Greystoke" and the depth thereof. Scenes briskly jump from one sequence to another without allowing the viewer to catch his or her breath. It's like they were saying, "Hurry up, we gotta get to the next scene!" The sequences needed more breathing-room; the dramatics needed to settle in with the viewer; the dialogs needed to be deeper. This is unfortunate because the film delivers with exceptional locations (beautiful South Africa) and a great assortment of animals (lions, elephants, etc.), including the ape-tribe that Tarzan grew up with (played by humans, of course). Plus, the lost city of Opar does appear in the final act, which mostly consists of a huge -- and I mean huge -- pyramid. This was evidently created via special effects, but looks convincing. Unfortunately, the lack of depth makes the story un-compelling. It's okay, but never captivating.All this points to the probability that the film was aimed at kids (ya think?), but this is contrasted by the film's ultra-serious vibe and lack of "cute kid" characters. But, don't get me wrong, I'm definitely not complaining as both of these factors are huge pluses in my book (for a Tarzan film, at least).Another problem is the addition of magic via the black tribe's shaman. I can take or leave this element, but the shaman's powers seem so great (by the end) that one wonders why he desperately sent for Tarzan in the first place -- a definite plot hole.FINAL WORD: "Tarzan and the Lost City" could've been a strong Tarzan movie but it needed more time in the creation process. It has great locations and other pluses but it was thrown together too quickly, and it shows. It's mediocre, but worth a look if you're a Tarzan fan and appreciate similar films, like "Congo" and "Sheena".GRADE: C

Since there was so much comment on the "fake gorillas," I think it is worth pointing out that these were not in fact intended to be gorillas but rather the fictional race of "great apes" that raised Tarzan in the Burroughs novels. They were supposed to be something closer to humans, with a language developed enough that it could be translated into English - in fact Tarzan was a word in the great ape language meaning "white skin." You can quibble about how successful the movie portrayal of these creatures was, but any Burroughs fan will recognize what they were trying to do. In any case, it was a brief sequence.I thought this movie was surprisingly good and came closer to capturing the flavor of Burroughs' later Tarzan novels than anything else I have seen. Burroughs, after all, was primarily a fantasy writer and there is no point in holding his fiction to any "realistic" standard. The production standards were quite good and I liked the principal actors. In fact, Van Dien may be my second favorite Tarzan, after Gordon Scott.

Casper Van Dien joins a long list of actors/athletes to essay the part of Edgar Rice Burroughs famous man of the jungle. As far as looks go he certainly fits the role, loincloth and all.Tarzan is as eternal on the screen in his history as Sherlock Holmes. Both of them if you remember were brought up to date during World War II to aid the Allied effort. And Tarzan had several modern adventures through his many films and television roles right up through the nineties.But on the cusp of a new millennium the Ape Man is returned to the period in time where Edgar Rice Burroughs set him in, clearly in British colonial Africa. Tarzan in fact has returned home to claim the title of the Earl of Greystoke and he's going to marry Jane March as Jane Porter.But Van Dien gets one of those instinctive feelings, the kind that Chuck Norris gets when his Cherokee people are in trouble on Walker, Texas Ranger. He postpones the wedding to an exasperated Jane and heads to Africa. Some of his native friends are indeed in trouble. A scientist who's hired a bunch of what would be called trailer park trash now is on the verge of discovering a lost city with untold wealth. It will make things worse than ever for the natives under colonialism if this archaeological Holy Grail is discovered.Casper tries to reason with the scientist and then takes the more Tarzan like approach to the problem. But things do get real complicated when Jane follows him to Africa. Tarzan and the Lost City is an old style adventure story with the benefit of 90s computer graphics. It's also politically sensitive, not portraying the natives as they were in those old Tarzan films from the studio days. And of course it's filmed entirely in Africa, certainly not done by MGM or RKO back in the day.In the jungle Casper's great to look at and a wonder to behold. But why did he try to adopt that English accent. He sounded silly when he used it. You notice Johnny Weissmuller never even attempted one. Of course they did keep his dialog to a minimum.Despite the accent, this latest big screen Tarzan is a good film and Casper Van Dien is a worthy successor to Johnny Weissmuller, Lex Barker, Gordon Scott, etc.