Baby George got into a plane crash in a jungle, stayed alive and was adopted by a wise ape. Ursula Stanhope, US noble woman is saved from death on safari by grown-up George, and he takes her to jungle to live with him. He slowly learns a rules of human relationships, while Ursula's lover Lyle is looking for her and the one who took her. After they are found, Ursula takes George to the USA. Heiress Ursula Stanhope treks off to Africa for adventure, and to get away from fiance Lyle Vandergroot. He follows her anyway. Ursula is rescued from a lion attack by George, who whisks her to his jungle tree house. There they are smitten by each other. Returning with her to San Francisco, it is George's turn to be bewildered by the urban jungle. Meanwhile, Lyle and his devious trackers pursue schemes of their own to kidnap George's elephant "doggie." Being a 90's and early 2000's child, I wouldn't have heard of the original cartoon series if it weren't for my parents having a couple VHS's of them. I watched them and I enjoyed them, so when the movie was coming out, I was excited. Unfortunately, we weren't able to see it in the theater,but my parents did buy the VHS of it. When we did watch it, we loved it, especially me, and maybe even more so now. Why?<br/><br/>First, the most important step of a good comedy is to make your audience laugh, and it did just that. How it managed to keep me laughing both as a kid and now was that it switched between different types of humor rather than sticking to just one. The best done here is the physical gags including the swing gags and the slapstick style fight scenes. Of course, there are very effective verbal humor that adults will enjoy, and that's not to say that there is an abundance of mildly suggestive comments, only like one or two, but even they make the adults laugh while just flying right over the children's heads. And there is also some mild toilet humor that will definitely make the children giggle.<br/><br/>Second, the film has plenty of heart. The movie does a great job of depicting a nice and believable love between George and Ursula. At the same time, it shows great friendship between George and his friends Ape, Tooki his toucan messenger, and Shep his elephant dog.<br/><br/>Third, the characters and the performances from the actors playing them are spot on. First of all, we have the naive but lovable George played in a hilarious performance by Brendan Fraser, the beautiful and sweet Ursula played by Leslie Mann, the shady egotistical and idiotic villain of the movie Lyle played by Thomas Haden Church, Ursula's snooty and not-so approving mother played perfectly by Holland Taylor, and last but not least: George's hilarious intelligent and sometimes sarcastic friend An Ape Named Ape voiced by John Cleese.<br/><br/>Fourth, the backgrounds and scenery are some of the best you'll ever see from the jungle to the waterfalls and rivers to the savannas.<br/><br/>With all the things about the movie that are great, are there any negatives about the movie? Yes, but they are extremely minor. First is the story, which is a bit unoriginal therefore having some predictability, but because of all the things positive about the movie, chances are you won't mind it. Second is that there are a few moments from the film that feel a bit dark, but they are very brief and won't do anything that will ruin or contradict the all around goofy and lighthearted tone of the movie.<br/><br/>So, all in all, this is a great family comedy. Parents, I highly recommend you share this movie with your children. I really think they'll love it.<br/><br/>9/10 I never saw the original series as much as the other, more famous, Jay Ward cartoon ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE, but what I did see had that show's same inclination towards subversive humor and bad puns (like when a white hunter named Weevil was tracking George, but George thinks he's thrown him off the trail because "See no Weevil, hear no Weevil, speak no Weevil"). This movie, however, blunts that edge. The narration by Keith Scott is funny in of itself (like when Thor wonders why he's taking glee at the misfortunes of the bad guys, and he replies, "Because I don't like you"), but I would have liked to see more interaction between him and the other characters. More importantly, there's more emphasis on "Watch out for that tree!" and other physical gags than on the verbal humor. And while the film is on solid ground in the jungle, the CROCODILE DUNDEE type second half is a retread.<br/><br/>It should be said that Fraser and Mann make an appealing duo, and Greg Cruttwell and Abraham Benrubi (from ER) are good villains, but Thomas Haden Church quickly becomes tiresome. John Cleese is droll as the Ape named Ape, but that joke is stretched too thin. Not quite inspired lunacy, the film has a game, likable quality.
Mardaril replied
371 weeks ago