By Geno McGahee
The 1990s was a good time but the Disney live action movies were certainly a mixed bag. Recently, I was pleasantly surprised by the 1999 film INSPECTOR GADGET, but I pushed my luck. I should have never watched that fucking sequel. So after that torture, you’d think that I would move on, far away from the 1990s Disney live action world, but I must know. Are the other films any good or are they shit? Certainly, on the surface, MR. MAGOO, FLUBBER and GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE look like complete shit, but don’t judge a book by its cover.
Ursla (Leslie Mann) is in the jungle, exploring the many wonders, but her fiancé, Lyle (Thomas Haden Church), wants to bring her home. He shows up with two stooges to take her home, but the stooges, Max (Greg Cruttwell) and Thor (Abraham Benrubi), have their own agenda. They want to capture the great white ape.
Mann is a very likable actress. She immediately made this movie impossible to really hate. In the movies I dislike like THE CABLE GUY, I can at least walk away saying, she seems nice. It’s the same thing here. Thomas Haden Church is the perfect actor to play Lyle. He is absolutely hilarious in this as he thinks that the guides are completely lost, telling them that his camera is magic. The commentary between the guides as they insult him is really funny too. This film came out swinging with a lot of effective humor and it didn’t let up.
As Lyle wants to show he’s a man, he takes Ursla through the jungle to track down the white ape but runs into a lion. Lyle says “I’ll go get help. You stay here,” leaving her with the lion. It was hilarious and we get the first real introduction to George (Brendan Fraser). He saves the day and chases off the lion and brings Ursla back to his tree house home, where she meets one of the greatest characters in the film, Ape (John Cleese), a talking gorilla.
George and Ursla begin falling for each other and she brings him back to the city, her home, and it really upsets her mother, Beatrice (Holland Taylor). You know any character named “Beatrice” is going to be a bitch. Maybe it’s just me, but Beatrice seems like the name of a jerk, right? I think it’s exclusive to senior citizens too. I’ve never met a young Beatrice or a hot Beatrice or a sexy senior citizen Beatrice. To be honest, I’ve not looked for one.
As George enjoys the city, Max and Thor decide to kidnap Ape and plan to make him a Las Vegas attraction and make millions off it. They are able to capture him, but he mocks them the whole time. It’s pretty funny and you cannot lose with Cleese. He is funny in everything he does.
We get the final showdown with Max and Thor taking on George and his animal friends and it actually had me crying. This film was far funnier than it had any right to be. The elephant/dog that George has loads up his trunk with coconuts and starts shooting them at the bad guys and ends up hitting George and then nails Ape in the nuts with it. I know it’s cheap humor, but seeing Ape wince in pain was so funny.
Another great moment is when Lyle reveals that he’s now permitted to marry people and decides to for Ursla to marry him as they float on this raft. They go into a dark tunnel and Lyle announces that they are married and when his new wife is revealed, it’s a smitten gorilla. I knew it was coming, but I still died at the scene.
GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE is a hilarious movie. The narrator that leads the audience throughout keeps it funny and they did a great job just keeping the humor going. Now, I grant you that I went into this one with low expectations, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that I was laughing and also rewinding parts that had me rolling.
I highly recommend this one. It has more than made up for INSPECTOR GADGET 2 and it was a box office hit, making 175 million on a 50 million dollar budget. I bet most of it was word of mouth because of how funny it was.
