An abecedarian, biographical approach to Edgar Rice Burroughs's Jungle Man (never called by the name of Tarzan; called only by John Clayton, Earl of Greystoke). This approach ensures some dull stretches, as we pick up the story before birth, proceed through infancy, childhood, and adolescence, hit all the major milestones along the way (the deaths of parents, both human and simian, etc.), and reach a form of adulthood that strangely suggests a European tennis star of the Bjorn Borg era. When you know that the narrative is eventually going to get around to the Ape Man's occupancy of his ancestral Scottish estate (identified on the soundtrack by the stirring march from Elgar's First Symphony), the jungle stuff seems to be wasted, or bided, time. And the gritty realism expended on that stuff seems to be wasted effort. There's some fun, finally, when the Ape Man attempts to mix in society, but not as much fun, of a similar type, as in Tarzan's New York Adventure of 1942. With Christopher Lambert, Ralph Richardson, Ian Holm, James Fox, and Andie MacDowell; directed by Hugh Hudson. (1984) — Duncan Shepherd
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