Tarzan And The Lost City (1998)

Starring - Casper Van Dien; Jane March; Steven Waddington; Winston Ntshona & Rapulana Seiphemo Director - Carl Schenkel MPAA - Rated PG for adventure violence. The only two really good things that I can say about Tarzan And The Lost City are as follows: Jane March was very cute as Jane, and the movie was thankfully under 90 minutes in length. If you haven't already figured it out, I didn't like this movie very much. The plot was boring and contrived to the extreme. Tarzan (Casper Van Dien) has now left the jungle and living in civilized society. He is just days away from his impending marriage to Jane, played by the aptly named Jane March. Back in his former home of Africa, a group of looters has found the key to locating a lost city. (Mind you I never really figured out why they actually wanted to find this city.) Anyway, Tarzan's old jungle friend appears to him in a vision. Tarzan realizes that he must return to Africa to help stop the bad guys from finding the lost city. He leaves Jane (his first mistake, in my opinion) and travels to Africa. Of course, Jane is hot on her ape man's heals. The two of them are reunited in Africa where they do battle with the bad guys. Sound like a dumb explanation of the plot? It's actually an improvement over the real thing. The acting is just plain awful. I'm not quite sure what Casper Van Dien was doing in this film, but it wasn't acting. Jane March wasn't a heck of a lot better, but at least she is easy on the eyes. Compounding the bad acting was the fact that in many places the dialogue had obviously been re-recorded, and I've seen better dubbing in some old Bruce Lee movies. Added to the sound problems was the cinematography. This film was filled with beautiful African scenery. But the panoramic scenery shots looked overexposed to me. Quite frankly, I think you could probably do a better job capturing the beauty of Africa with a camcorder than this bunch did with professional film equipment. Then we have the special effects. "Special effects in a Tarzan movie?" you are no doubt asking yourself? Yes friends, the writers injected some very out of place supernatural elements into the story. Probably for the sake of using CGI, since it did nothing but hurt the story. In most parts, they weren't bad, just nothing special, and more than a little on the hokey side. This changes when we get to the ridiculous climax of this movie. The grand finale's special effects went right into the toilet at that point. It almost looked like they had run out of money. These effects were of noticeably lower quality than those in the rest of the film and looked like something in an amateur video production. I took one lesson away from watching Tarzan And The Lost City -- ape men and bones that morph into skeletal warriors don't mix. Stay far away from this version of Tarzan. 4/10 - Skip it. Reviewed May 7, 1999 by Joe Chamberlain