Tarzan and the Lost City

Van Dien, late of Starship Troopers, is back in what appears to be another unintentional satire in this umpteenth variation on Edgar Rice Burroughs' formidable series. Unfortunately, the late, lamented Johnny Weissmuller had more charismatic chutzpah in a single digit than Van Dien has in his whole abflexed frame. The film opens promisingly enough with a title crawl informing us that the story is picking up after John Clayton, Lord of Greystoke Manor (aka Tarzan) has returned to his ancestral manse to take his rightful place in the British upper crust. Engaged to his true love Jane (March), he's about to cross the threshold when his old jungle friends telepathically contact him from darkest Africa. It seems there is trouble afoot, and without as much as a by-your-leave, John catches the next steamer to the continent and is back in the veldt faster than you can say “contrivance.” Upon arriving, he finds himself up against a legion of vicious, greedy white men, led by the wholly unscrupulous Nigel Ravens (Waddington), who is intent on discovering and ransacking the lost city of Opar -- all the while putting down as many natives and forest-dwellers as possible. Everyone in this film is either diabolically evil or annoyingly just, with precious little middle ground. It's black versus white, right against might all the way down the line, making this one of the most exasperatingly dull outings since John Derek decided to showcase wife Bo's aureola in white clay back in 1981. With Jane's arrival in the land of the Opar (and just how did she get there, anyway?), the film gives the Ape Man a sort of double-jeopardy situation, fighting to protect his gun-toting bride and the Oparians while shedding slacks in favor of that old standby, the rustic loincloth. March is lovely to look at, but her acting chops remain on a par with Van Dien's, and together they're as insufferable a pair as you'd ever want to endure. Thankfully the monosyllabic “Me Tarzan, you Jane” vocalisms have been cast aside in favor of the King's English, but then it doesn't help matters that the script seems to have been penned by Cheetah while in the midst of a banana daiquiri bender. Schenkel can only keep things interesting for so long with some nicely expansive shots of the African interior, but when it comes to choreographing action, he's all non-opposable thumbs, resulting in a slight Tarzan with wooden acting, petrified action, and all the fun of a elephant-leg end table.