Tarzan and the Lost City (1998)

Sadly Over-hyped

Fantastic!

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Casper Van Dien, the hot young actor who starred in Paul Verhoeven's hit, "Starship Troopers," is Tarzan, who, on the eve of the wedding to his beautiful fiancée, Jane (Jane March), is confronted by a vision of the destruction of his childhood home. Torn between staying in England with Jane and returning at once to Africa, Tarzan, Lord Greystoke, returns to his adopted home, where he squares off against European soldiers of fortune, led by the Oxford-educated Nigel Ravens (Steven Waddington), bent on discovering and looting the legendary and mythic city of Opar.When Jane decides to follow her fiancé Tarzan (Casper Van Dien) into dangerous territory, not only Tarzan must protect the city of Opar but must protect Jane also, while trying to stop Nigel Ravens and his men.

Africans can turn themselves into swarms of bees or giant snakes and back so why can't they easily win a fight with human whites? I was shocked at how stupid & incompetent Africans were portrayed as, and I'm not even black. Monkeys invented kung fu and taught it to Tarzan, insulting Asians. It's nice that an actress with a strong facial resemblance to a monkey gets work but surely the film-makers were making fun of Jane March by casting her as the girlfriend of Tarzan "the Apeman". An object thrown at a bad guy was so heavy that it knocked him over, yet Tarzan was strong enough to toss it across at him, defying the laws of physics and insulting all us viewers. Tarzan taught himself to read, insulting everyone on the planet.

At least someone, somewhere, involved in this disposable Ape Man entry bothered to read the famous Edgar Rice Burroughs books on which the character is based. What was done with that information, unfortunately, amounts to nothing. Tarzan (vacantly handsome Casper Van Dien) and Jane (nondescript Jane March) head back to the jungle homeland and encounter pillaging baddies led by Steven Waddington (used better as a more complex nasty in The Last of the Mohicans). Director Carl Schenkel's film gives Tarzan back his long-absent status as an articulate gentleman, and it contains elements of Burroughs's feverish imagination, but it dully ticks off the "adventures" without any thrilling sense of fun. Schenkel is so inattentive to detail that he would have us believe no one raises an eyebrow at the sight of a man morphing into a humongous cobra (not that the Xena-level effects help). It's blandly amusing watching Van Dien plug away ineptly at both his heroics and English accent, though this is ultimately an empty diversion for completest only.

I loved this Tarzan movie, as it goes right away from the normal Tarzan movie. I liked that it has the same type of features that Tarzan of the past has had, but with a new look to head into the next generation. Casper Van Dien really shines in this movie, he has an amazing amount of energy, which this film needed. This Tarzan movie has a new twist, with old ways of life meeting the new way of life. I think it is a great movie.