Rating -

Action (US); 1998; Rated PG; 83 Minutes

Cast
Casper Van Dien: Tarzan
Jane March: Jane
Steven Waddington: Nigel Ravens
Winston Ntshona: Mugambe
Rapulana Seiphemo: Kaya
Ian Roberts: Capt. Dooley
Peter Spyro: Winston

Produced by Stanley S. Canter, Greg Coote, Dieter Geissler, Michael Lake, Lawrence Mortorff, Kurt Silberschneider and Peter Ziegler; Directed by Carl Schenkel; Screenwritten by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Bayard Johnson and J. Anderson Black

Review Uploaded
9/03/98

"Tarzan And The Lost City" is dead. It's a completely dead movie. Nothing is alive or amusing about it. It's one big dead mess waiting for a coffin. It's a dead film waiting to be pushed off a bridge and into a watery grave. It's a dead movie just as bad as the other "Tarzan" movies.

I hope it fails miserably. No, not just because it's bad, but also because a point needs to be made. We cannot continue to subject ourselves to these "Tarzan" films any longer. Can you even think of one that is entertaining? By failing the newest remake, perhaps Hollywood will wise up and discontinue the line of "Tarzan" pictures.

The film stars Casper Van Dien as the loin-clothed legend, who returns back to the jungles of Africa from London after he learns that his tribe is the target of a bounty hunt by ruthless head hunters.

When his true love, Jane, follows him, she uncovers an even bigger plan, in which the bounty hunters plan to break into a legendary African lost city and steal all of the treasure which, in turn, would tear Africa's terrain apart.

Okay, so this story's a little more involved than you'd expect from a "Tarzan" picture, but that's no consolation prize. In order for such material to work, the movie, as most films, must contain scenes that blend well with each other to create a movie well-paced and entertaining. When scenes like the ones in "Tarzan In The Lost City" are not blended together, the movie becomes a tiresome and dead example of wasted exercises in talent and ambition. You can tell from a couple of the camera shots on how well these crew members are trained to make a movie. I imagine they could do a great movie one day, but they certainly don't do it here. Whoever was in charge of the project is obviously a disorganized human being. The moments of tension and climax in "Tarzan And The Lost City" are not only misplaced, but fragmented and disconnected from the rest of the movie.

Disconnected films are absolute wastes. Once they are made, nothing can save them. And with the way "Tarzan And The Lost City" looks and feels, not even Casper Van Dien could have saved his character from the picture's total destruction.