The assembly line of classic 1960s television (we're talking my CHILDHOOD, here) into 1990s movies continues with Disney's "George of the Jungle." The original Jay Ward cartoon featured terrible puns, a smarmy narrator, and the dumber-than-driftwood Tarzan-wannabe George.
The film version recreats all those elements with surprisingly good results. Fraiser as George gets away with an awful lot of mugging, but he seems so innocent and unaffected that he puts it over.
The SPFX are good in a Jumanji kind of way; movielovers with even half an eye open will be able to tell the CGI Shep from his real counterpart and the audioanimatronic Ape named Ape. But the HOW of this movie doesn't detract from the WHY... Cleese makes an effective British APE, and SHEP's scenes are downright hilarious (watch him play fetch!).
I also liked the way the movie kept the metahumor aspects of the series--here's a film that is clearly not afraid to make fun of itself. Pages of explanatory dialogue from Ursula, for instance, are dispensed with in speeded-up fashion (a la "The Gods Must Be Crazy"), complete with chipmunk voice.
By the final reel, everything degenerates into poop and pee jokes, which the prepubescent boys this movie is pitched at should find knee-slappingly hilarious.
It's tough to be too tough on "G of the J." All you need is a snippet of that infectuous theme song (Boom, boom, boom-boom ba, BOOM boom...) and you know you're in for a good time.
Sorta made me want to curl up in a big chair with my noo-noo and munch my way through a bowl of Quisp!
The film version recreats all those elements with surprisingly good results. Fraiser as George gets away with an awful lot of mugging, but he seems so innocent and unaffected that he puts it over.
The SPFX are good in a Jumanji kind of way; movielovers with even half an eye open will be able to tell the CGI Shep from his real counterpart and the audioanimatronic Ape named Ape. But the HOW of this movie doesn't detract from the WHY... Cleese makes an effective British APE, and SHEP's scenes are downright hilarious (watch him play fetch!).
I also liked the way the movie kept the metahumor aspects of the series--here's a film that is clearly not afraid to make fun of itself. Pages of explanatory dialogue from Ursula, for instance, are dispensed with in speeded-up fashion (a la "The Gods Must Be Crazy"), complete with chipmunk voice.
By the final reel, everything degenerates into poop and pee jokes, which the prepubescent boys this movie is pitched at should find knee-slappingly hilarious.
It's tough to be too tough on "G of the J." All you need is a snippet of that infectuous theme song (Boom, boom, boom-boom ba, BOOM boom...) and you know you're in for a good time.
Sorta made me want to curl up in a big chair with my noo-noo and munch my way through a bowl of Quisp!