Tarzan and the Lost City (PG) no stars
One review of 1994's Sylvester Stallone-Sharon Stone actioner The Specialist called that superstar team-up "the acting equivalent of the Hindenburg meeting the Titanic." If that's the case, then the pairing of hack-tors Casper Van Dien (Teen Beat-ready block of meat from Starship Troopers) and Jane March (last seen delivering what should have been a career-ending performance as three characters in the atrocious Color of Night) is the acting equivalent of armageddon meeting the end of the universe. In this horribly conceived and executed update of Edgar Rice Burroughs's classic character, the King of the Jungle (Van Dien) returns to his African homeland to prevent some treasure hunters from finding the sacred lost city of Opar; following him to the jungle is his loyal fiancee Jane (March, thankfully keeping her clothes on for a change).
Tarzan and the Lost City, directed by Carl Schenkel, is the latest in what's becoming a most unwelcome annual cinematic tradition--the horrid jungle adventure (the most recent entrants being last year's Anaconda and 1995's unspeakable Congo). There are lousy, sub-Lost in Space effects; cheap gorilla suits; flat-out atrocious performances (Van Dien's barely-there, why-the-hell-even-bother attempt at a British accent makes Kevin Costner look like Meryl Streep); and, worst of all, a lack of genuine thrills. Tarzan swings on vines and everything else, but there's nothing exciting about anything, certainly not the boring, anti-climactic "climax" in a pyramid. The audience of ten with whom I saw the film got the most amusement from Van Dien's hilariously delivered animal noises and sloppily dubbed Tarzan call. If this is truly, as the Warner Bros. publicity machine stated, "A new Tarzan for a new generation," then everyone falling into the Generation X category should be incredibly offended. I know I am.
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