#6: George of the Jungle (1997)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119190/

So. I'm going through a hard to explain Brendan Fraser faze at the moment. In the past two weeks I've watched 8 of his movies; Monkey Bone (2001), School Ties (1992), The Passion of Darkly Noon (1995), Dudley Do-Right (1999), The Mummy (1999), The Mummy Returns (2001), The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008) and today George of the Jungle (1997). I think it's safe to say The Mummy is my favorite of them all but for today lets talk about George of the Jungle since it's the freshest in my mind.

George of the Jungle is a 1997 film directed by Sam Weisman starring my dear Brendan Fraser as George Jungle, the jungle man, Judd Apatow's Leslie Mann as Ursula Stanhope, the cute and loving little explorer, Thomas Haden Church as the eeeevil Lyle van de Groot, Ursulas' fiance, and John Cleese lends his voice to Ape. The Ape... who talks. John Bennett Perry and the hilarious Holland Taylor also appear in the last half as Ursulas' parents.

Before I begin I want everyone to give Brendan Fraser some snaps for doing what he does. Many people mock Brendan for his choices in films but I applaud him. I mean, not only is he great at doing these kinds of movies where he plays all sorts of crazy but he also rocks at serious roles too (ex. School Ties). He just throws himself into his roles and that's something I can't begin to tell you how much I admire. He's a true blue actor through and through. Mad snaps. Snap snap snap.

Mmkay. So George of the Jungle is based on the cartoons by Jay Ward who also wrote the Dudley Do-Right cartoons (Fraser starred in the title role of the modern cinema remake of that too). Both films are very similar, both are essentially live action cartoons stringed along by narrators (I thought they were narrated by the same person, but apparently not). George is definitely the funnier of the two, even though Dudley had it's moments.

OH CAY. Blah blah blah boring stuff is now out of way. On to fun review! First half of George and Jungle is quite tedious. It has a few LOL moments but it isn't until about half way through when the scenery changes and it really picks up. The last half is seriously one of the funniest things I've seen in a really long time. Brendan Fraser kills as the clueless ape man in the big city, but he's not so clueless that it's frustrating. He's not frightened by cars and he doesn't howl at the telephone. He's basically just a big kid and let me tell you that my generation ate this shizz up with a little, labeled mickey mouse spoon. The rest of the cast rocks too. Everyone was just cast perfectly.

Uhm. The plot is very simple, so I wont spoil it, because unless you're under the age of 7 you'll see all the twists coming anyways.

Really the movie is just dumb, harmless fun. Yeah, there's a few perhaps unnecessary "adult" jokes, but kids wont get them. Promise. They even poke some fun at their more 'low brow' jokes. There's one in particular in the beginning that I LMAO-ed over. You'll know/will know which one I'm talking about. Key words: Elephant poop. Hilarity.

I mean, if you're old you might not enjoy this as much as a young person as myself does, but Mr. Fraser is a total stud muffin in it. Sooo, if that's of any consequence...

In conclusion:
On a scale of 1-10 I give it a 8.5.
Yah. I loved it.

Seriously, go watch this movie.
I'm sure you'll go ape over it!
Ha! Ha! Ha!
I'm so sorry.

- Courtenay, mmkay.