George of the Jungle
Director: Sam Weisman.
Starring: Brendan Fraser, Leslie Mann, Thomas Haden Church, Richard
Roundtree, John Cleese.
I have to confess that for the past couple of months I've been
randomly going up to people and singing "George, George, George of the
jungle." As you can imagine, this has received a uniform response. It
wasn't, however, until just recently that I managed to see this movie,
partly
because I wanted to avoid school children and partly because there
have been lots of other good movies to see.
As I was about to enter the cinema, having already bought my ticket, a
bus-load of out of town school children descended on the theatre: the
best laid plans...
George of the Jungle
is quite fun and reasonably successful at what it tries to do. It's
slapstick humour, aimed at small children. There are way too many
"Watch out for that..." jokes for my liking, but there are also a
couple of moments of very funny stuff and, of course, a great theme
song.
All of the actors play their parts well, given that hamming it up and
playing it over the top are part and parcel of the movie. I found
Ms. Leslie Mann a bit annoying but that's her, rather than anything she
did; I have a problem with lispy, "helium-voiced" females. Also, the
shrew-mother-understanding-but-hen-pecked-father scenario is getting a
bit tired. Yes, it's only a kids movie but that's the problem: young
children pick up on these things.
Also, I didn't understand the final rescue bit. Ok, I realise that
I'm admitting a lot here by confessing to not understanding George
of the Jungle but why was he trying to hit the tree? I assumed
that they were about to go down some amazing waterfall. Instead, it
was all over. Very strange. (I do understand that I've given away
some of the
plot. Somehow I don't think it matters.)
As a final criticism of the movie, it seemed a bit long. First, as a
movie aimed at small children, I think their patience (and that of
their parents) would be tried. Also, there always seemed to be just
one more thing that had to be resolved. I kept thinking that now they
can live happily ever after only to remember that Lyle was still
around, or Ape was still missing.
On the grounds that it is explained to children that hitting trees is
not actually all that funny, this is not a bad kids' movie. For
adults, it's a bit slow with one or two funny lines and a theme song
that stays with you forever. I think I'm going to continue to
randomly accost people.
Rating: P
© Nikki Lesley 1997