Frazer in the Hebrides (12/1/01)
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Tarzan and the Lost City. [Carl Schenkel, 1998.]
On the eve of his wedding in 1913, Lord Greystoke [Casper Van Dien] receives a psychic transmission from his blood brothers in Africa which causes him to drop everything and dash to the Dark Continent, pissing off his fiance Jane March no end; there unfolds a scheme hatched by some unusually venal White Hunters to seek out and find the Lost City of Opar and loot it of its fabulous treasures, the meanwhile perpetrating assorted heinous acts of rape, pillage, ivory theft, looting, animal capture mistreatment and slaughter, etc., etc., in which after changing out of his civvies back into his loincloth our hero must naturally oppose them. Recovering from her pique, Jane follows him to Africa and promptly falls into the hands of the bad guys; complications ensue. The chase through the labyrinthine caves that lead into the hidden valley concealing Opar [which seems to consist mainly of a giant pyramid filled with jewels and topped off by an altar for staging blood sacrifices] is fairly entertaining. The finale is, predictably, a homage to the Hammer version of
She, Harryhausen’s
Jason and the Argonauts, and [all together now]
Raiders of the Lost Ark. — Not entirely stupid, though Van Dien is more than usually wooden in the role and could probably be replaced by CGI. — Ms. March is much better, but where’s that nude swim beneath the waterfall?
____________On the rampage (11/20/01)
