by Jerry Roberts

The idea that director Hugh Hudson had for Greystoke the Legend of Tarzan Lord of the Apes was to create a film that saw the story of Tarzan more or less the way Edgar Rice Burrows envisioned it. Meaning, no vines, no chimp sidekick, no cannibals, no mystical garbeldy-guke, no silly yell. The producer of that film, Steven Canter, apparently didn’t like the idea so much and gave us Tarzan and the Lost City a typical Tarzan adventure that restores those elements but not much else. His inspiration was the Johnny Weismuller adventures of the 1930s, it’s just as familiar, just as transparent and just as disposable.

It also shares the running time, which is just over an hour. In fact, I checked my watch as Tarzan and the Lost City was wrapping up and I halfway expected another development to take place. If you cut out the opening and closing credits the movie is actually only about 70 minutes long. Ironically, even at that, the movie still overstays it's welcome.

Not that it has much welcome to wear out mind you. The movie is actually a low-level sequel to Greystoke that finds the ape man returning to Africa on the eve of his wedding to Jane, nevermind that the earlier film ended with our hero giving up civilization for Africa. At his mansion in London, about to walk down the aisle with his beloved, the swinger formerly known as Tarzan man has visions of a tribe back home being pillaged by poachers seeking the lost city of Opar.

The title role is occupied prosaically by Casper Van Dien who has worked out, has a proper tan and has brushed his teeth but I didn't buy him as Tarzan anymore that I would have bought him playing Jane. She by the way is played by picture perfect Jane March and I promise you that this is the first film that I have seen her in, in which she doesn’t take her clothes off. Her last two questionable movie adventures were the Playboy-wannabe fantasy The Lover and the Bruce Willis hackjob Color of Night.

Anyway, back to the ‘hood goes Tarzan donning a loin cloth just as sure as Batman dons his cowl. He helps rescue the child-like tribesmen who are shape-shifters possessing the power to transform themselves into a swarm of bees but none-the-less still needing his help. Accompanying T in his rescue efforts are a bunch of guys in moth-eaten rubber gorilla suits who are at his beckon call. Jane follows her fiancee against his wishes (of course) because . . . well mostly because if she didn’t then Miss March would draw a short paycheck.

Underwhelming action scenes follow familiar story elements all to the tune of nothing that would be anymore puzzling than the games on the Happy Meal box. This one is more laughable than thrilling right up to the closing freeze frame of T and J swinging on a vine, a shot that could have been stolen from an Irish Spring commercial.

All of this in the service of a movie that is over before your popcorn gets cold. There really isn't anything new here, we've seen it all before in every other Tarzan movie. Perhaps `Tarzan and the Lost City' might work if you have in fact never seen a Tarzan movie. Or Superman. Or Batman. Or Indiana Jones, or Star Wars, or Star Trek or James Bond or The Wizard of Oz or The Lion King or . . . ah heck, just skip it.