Date: Fri 25-Jul-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: DONNAM

Quick Words:

George-Jungle-Playing-Fraser

Full Text:

(rev "George of The Jungle" for Now Playing, 7/25/97)

Now Playing-

With Fraser, `George' Swings Easily From Small Screen To Big

By Trey Paul Alexander

It's hard to believe (well, maybe not so hard) that while growing up, my

brother and I were prone to watch six hours on TV in one day... in one

sitting... all on a Saturday morning! And that was just the capper of what had

been a long, hard week of tube watching. It's frightening to think of the

clutter of cartoons stuck in my brain. Absent from my experiences, howeve r,

is the `60s series on which Disney's George of the Jungle , playing at the

Crown Cine, is based. But the show's producer, Jay Ward, is known by his

warped, yet side-splittingly funny takes on Rocky, Bullwinkle and their clan.

Ward's subversive sensibility is often alive and well in this adaptation,

drawing laughs out of a fair, well-intentioned, summer film.

For one thing, the smart-aleck narrator, a trademark of Ward's, is present,

giving the movie an occasional zing whenever it begins to falter. At times

giving play-by-play narration of the events on screen, other times barking out

directions to the characters, and even once getting in an argument with one of

the villains, the narrator serves not only to remind viewers that the film

takes itself none too seriously, but also that this is indeed a far-fetched

comedy, based only tenuously on any sort of reality.

But then, the movie, as a parody of Tarzan , assumes that its audience

understands this. That's why George (Brendan Fraser), orphaned in the jungle

as an infant after being lost during a plane crash, can unexplainedly speak

near perfect English, has a talking, text-book reading, simian sidekick named

Ape (voiced by John Cleese), and boasts a faithful dog named Shep... only this

"dog" is a playful, bounding, tongue-wagging elephant! Admittedly, such

creature characters are much easier to pull off in an animated cartoon, but

the filmmakers, aided by Jim Henson's Creature Shop, pull them off well in a

balancing act of believability and cheeky levity.

The plot, on the other hand, is only serviceable. It begins with a wealthy

heiress named Ursula (Leslie Mann), who is on a safari trek through the wilds

of Africa, joined by her pretentious bore of a fiance, Lyle (Thomas Haden

Church). Tales of a legendary white gorilla abound, and these ersatz explorers

and their band roam the jungle seeking this mythical beast. What they get is

George, who saves Ursula from the jaws of a lion and whisks her away to his

jungle treehouse where she meets the fellas.

The plot then shifts to San Francisco as Ursula returns the favor and brings

George to civilization. Ursula fears the reaction of her high-society mother

(Holland Taylor) if she sees her daughter on the arm of an ape man and the

"respectable" Lyle shunned, but she ought to worry more about George's zany

escapades in the concrete jungle of the City by the Bay.

George of the Jungle delivers its share of groaners (the "Watch out for that

tree!" gag gets old early) and occasionally turns to low-brow humor

(flatulence and other bodily functions) to get a cheap laugh. But it does have

a likable hero. The grinning Fraser makes a winning doofus ("George look good

in Armani," he smiles during a shopping spree at Neiman Marcus), and it's easy

to root for him to win the charms of the curly-headed cutesy Ursula (Mann is

game as the sterotypically saucer-eyed heroine with the girlish voice).

Also in the film's favor is a slick, polished production that appears to cut

few corners. There are plenty of panoramic shots of both the African

(actually, Hawaiian) and American backdrops, and George's vine-swinging

escapades, while played for laughs, are also nicely stylish and dashing.

George of the Jungle is rated PG. There is little profanity but much of the

barely loin-clothed Fraser.