George Of The Jungle

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	None
Rating
Year Released	1997
Running Time	87:58 minutes
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Movie
Region	2,4	Director	Sam Weisman
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Brendan Fraser  Leslie Mann Thomas Haden Church Holland Taylor Richard Roundtree John Cleese
Case	Amaray
RPI	$36.95	Music	Marc Shaiman

   We start with an animated synopsis of how George comes to be in the jungle before jumping forward to the modern day, where wealthy banker's daughter, the beautiful Ursula Stanhope (Leslie Mann), is on safari in the mountains of Africa. Enjoying the company of her native guides, led by Kwame (Richard Roundtree), she is revelling in her escape from the urban jungle of San Francisco, at least until boorish fiancé Lyle Van de Groot (Thomas Haden Church) arrives on the scene most unexpectedly to return her to that urban jungle and their wedding.

    Determined to upset as many people as possible, including his fiancé, in as short a period of time as possible through his boorish behaviour, he learns the tale of the fabled White Ape of the jungle. Determined to get Ursula back to San Francisco as soon as possible, Lyle agrees to head off to view the delights of the jungle with Ursula - whereupon they come face-to-face with the local wildlife. Lyle does the typical manly thing and runs, leaving Ursula to fend for herself, whereupon she is of course saved by the fabled White Ape, George (Brendan Fraser). Saved from being a meal for the local wildlife, Ursula is whisked off to George's place to recover from her ordeal, only to come face to face with a talking ape (voiced by John Cleese), which does her state of health no good at all. Naturally, since this is a Disney film, the short story is that George falls for Ursula and vice versa, but to live happily ever after we have to endure the other half of the film, which broadly entails Lyle making up fabulous stories, really annoying even more people and giving his poacher buddies the scent of something big. They all head off in search of George, for different purposes, and after finding him, Lyle shoots him. Ursula then whisks George back to San Francisco for treatment, allows George to get up to a few things and eventually realizes she loves him before heading back to the jungle to tell George, since George has by now returned to the jungle to rescue his primate brother Ape from the clutches of the poachers.

    Yes, well we knew the story was not going to be confused with something from the pen of Charles Dickens but it is decent enough. What makes the film, though, is the wonderfully tongue-in-cheek performances, most especially from Brendan Fraser, that really wring every ounce of hilarity out of the gags on offer. The semi-narrative presentation of the film provides the setting for much of the visual humour here, and that is another way in which the spirit of the cartoons is brought to life. Leslie Mann is an extremely effective foil for Brendan Fraser and the talented Thomas Haden Church does a superb job as the boorish American tourist. However, the real treat here comes from Ape and his primate mates and they really make this a terrific little live action romp done in a cartoon style. Sam Weisman does a good job of putting this film together, and it is not difficult to see why this did so well at the box office. The effects are quite well done including George's dog Shep - an elephant. All done very much in the style to make this a winner with the younger set, the end result is something that actually goes down well with a broad cross-section of people.

    George Of The Jungle is a most enjoyable romp of a film that is guaranteed to keep most of the family amused and is well worth investigating.

Video

    The transfer is a Pan and Scan effort, and is not 16x9 enhanced. This is the major disappointment, for I am fairly sure that the theatrical release was in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1. Whilst I appreciate that this is predominantly a children's film, I do not find that a sufficient excuse to deny the consumer a widescreen presentation of the film. Far too often, Buena Vista seem to inflict Pan and Scan versions of films upon us rather than widescreen versions for similar reasons it seems, and it simply is not good enough. If it really is necessary, what is so terribly wrong with having both a Pan and Scan transfer and a widescreen transfer on the same disc?

    Apart from that, there is nothing else wrong here at all. It is a nicely sharp transfer without tending towards being oversharp. It is a nicely detailed transfer with plenty of shadow detail where necessary. It is a very clear transfer, and there is no hint of grain here as far as I can tell. There are no problems with low level noise at all. Overall, this is definitely a very good-looking transfer, the likes of which have been sadly missing from more recent Buena Vista efforts in general.

    The colours are quite vibrant and this comes up in a suitably bright and colourful way. Whilst I would have liked just a bit more brightness to the green tones at times, there really is not much wrong with the overall impression of the transfer. There is no hint of oversaturation at all and colour bleed is also not an issue.

    There are no significant MPEG artefacts in the transfer. There may have been a few odd instances of shimmer in the transfer, but that would have been the extent of the film-to-video artefacts, and these were certainly not a distraction to the film at all. There were just a few odd film artefacts to contend with, but nothing at all bothersome and this really is quite a clean transfer in that respect.

    The packaging claims that there is a Portuguese subtitle option on the disc, but you will not find it, as it is definitely not there.
 
 

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain
Film-to-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Dialogue was very clear and easy to understand. Apart from the dialogue involving the (presumably) animatronic Ape, there were no problems with audio sync in the transfer.

    The music score comes from Marc Shaiman, and a suitably comical, cartoonish affair it is too. It complements the film very well indeed, and although not exactly memorable, it is doubtful that the film would have had quite the same impact without this sort of quality score.

    Apart from the fact that there was a huge scope for loads more ambience through the rear channels, this is another quite decent 5.1 soundtrack. As befitting a film aimed at the younger set, the bass channel is not given a huge amount of work and some of the usage it does get is just a little restrained. This is however not a transfer problem. Front surround channel use is quite decent and the overall sound is quite natural and without any noticeable defect of any kind.
 
 

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
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© Ian Morris (have a laugh, check out the bio)
15th October 2000