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"GEORGE of the Jungle" runs the whole gamut of schoolboy
humour: slapstick, farting jokes, animals that behave like humans and
a narrator that uses the word "do-dos". I thought it was dreadful,
but then again I hung up my satchel long ago.
A spoof of the Tarzan story it follows
accident prone vine-swinger, George (Brendan Fraser) who lives in a
jungle idyll with an erudite, talking gorilla called "Ape"
(John Cleese) and an elephant that thinks it is a dog. However, this
pleasant life is soon disrupted when he rescues San Franciscan socialite
and naive adventurer Ursula (Leslie Mann) from the jaws of a lion. Love
begins to blossom back at George's jungle abode. However, Ursula's egotistical,
selfish fiancée and bumbling baddies (who want to capture him and take
him back to America) are closing in. The running joke of this film is
that George not so much flies from tree to tree but smashes into the
trees, or anything upright for that matter. Again. And again. And again.
The story is rife with silliness. The main characters (all white) are
all incredibly dim (which gives rise for lots of jokes about the black
porters being more worldly than they appear). There is lots of physical,
knockabout humour with people regularly being bopped on the head, while
the special effects department have gone to great lengths to make George's
elephant behave like a excitable dog - another one joke wonder.
Perhaps the best part of the film is when
George ends up in the urban jungle of San Francisco. Having traded in
sweaty loin cloth for Armani suit, he continues to behave as he would
in his own element, riding around on the roof of street cars and sleeping
on Ursula's balcony. It's Crocodile Dundee territory and quite amusing
if you can suspend your critical faculties. If you can't this is just
going to be one long groan-a-minute panto number.
The Fixer
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