Toon'd Out Month: George of the Jungle

Hello, Spongy here. And Welcome back to Toon’d out month!

I have no real introduction for this one. It needs no introduction. At all.

I don’t need to pre-face this review with anything,. Well like our last film it is a jay ward adaptation. But that’s about it.

With that said, let’s dive in to another live action adaptation of a cartoon I have seen and liked.

This, is George of the jungle

The movie begins with a narrator…voiced by the same one from rocky and Bullwinkle. Oh, this is gonna be good.

The narrator talks about this tough jungle where a plane crashed. (Insert lost joke here).  Everyone got rescued…except for a certain baby who stayed there.

That baby, as you may guess, was George.

And then we get, what I like to call..

THE CATCHIEST THEME SONG EVER MADE.

I’m serious, guys. Once you hear this, it will never leave your head. This allied to the original cartoon, and it goes double for the movie’s epic version.

If you thought the ducktales theme was catchy, you’ve seen nothing! I am dead serious here

…so anyway, we cut to 25 years later where George has grown up to be the king of jungle. But before we can even see him well, we cut to something new.

We see  heiress Ursula Stanhope (Leslie Mann) explore the jungle near George's home with the help of her guide, Mr. Kwame (Richard Roundtree) and some native porters. . She has traveled to Africa alone, but she is joined by her wealthy fiancé, Lyle Van De Groot (Thomas Haden Church),

From that alone, can you guess what happens, even if you know nothing about this film?

If you said yes, then good for you. Have a cookie!

Anyway, I have no issue with this to be honest. As much is I hate the “nice chick’s boyfriend is an ass” cliché, its done fine here. Besides, it’s a family comedy, I’ll let it slide.

The boyfriend came with two guys who are obviously evil from their dialogue, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it... That evening, Mr. Kwame recounts the legend of the White Ape, said to be a huge, super-strong primate who rules the surrounding jungle.

Guess who the white ape is.

Anyway, the next day they head closer and closer to ‘George’s home. The narrator, narrates

“They looked at the mountains with awe”

“Awwwww…”

“I saw awe!”

“Ohhhhh!”

“Better”

Okay, that’s stupid, but funny.

They cross a bridge, and a guy falls off it/.

“Don’t worry; no one dies in this story. They just get really big boo boo’s”

That’s also funny. Told you this needed no introduction.

Lyle notices that those two guys are assholes to him, so he takes Ursula and heads into the jungle. But then, a lion attacks them and Lyle pulls a cartmen and ditches her.

But of course, she is saved by George, played by Brendan Fraiser.

He does a very good job in this movie. He raises the already funny lines to a whole new level. Plus, this was before he became the Fraiser we know today.

She wakes up in George’s jungle home, and is scared shitless by an ape giving her breakfast.’

I don’t blame her. Breakfast giving apes are the scariest thing ever. If had the apes in Planet of the apes giving breakfast, I would shit bricks.

After she faints, George inspects her and realizes the difference between man and woman…when he touches her boob.

You know-for kids!

George doesn’t quite get this whole, human thing, and ape tries to explain it, with little luck.

Oh, ape is voiced by John Cleese.

Neat.

She wakes up and has a chat with George. She thanks for the rescue, and George calls on his pet Elephant shep, who he thinks is a dog. But reality, he’s a lame GGI effect.

George and the chick start to bond as she learns about the jungle and stuff. This is pretty well done, I must say. They have some real chemistry together, and the movie does take some time for their development.

But George talks to ape….

“George having stirring of special feelings right now”

Ah, it’s his first boner, how cute!

Anyway, we cut back to Lyle as he’s now with the other guy’s searching for Ursula. However, they are not that fond of Lyle so they plan to off him later. Lyle suspects this, so he tries to make amends. This…kind of works, I guess. They find Lyle such a funny jack ass that they keep him around.

Back with George, he tries out some dating advice he got from ape. It…doesn’t work well. He decides to ….just talk to her. And it works.

Pffft, how unrealistic.

Even though some of this is cliché, it’s still kind of cute. Plus, this movie is funny enough for me to look past all that.

Back with Lyle, he and the guy’s keep trekking when…Lyle falls in some shit.

“Bad guy falls in poop: Classic element of physical comedy. Now comes the part where we throw our heads back & laugh. Ready?”

Hey, they made explaining the joke FUNNY! Never thought I’d see the day…

The bad guy’s find the chick, and Lyle tries to make amends with her. But the other bad guy’s pull out their guns and try to take down shep, but John Cleese tells him to get the fuck out of there.

However, George gets shot…but the narrator comedically brushes it off because “let’s face it, he’s the hero”

Yes, I find this genuinely funny.

While Lyle is jailed for the shooting, Ursula flies George to her home in San Francisco for medical treatment. Oh, the other poachers scheme to capture Ape who they saw talk. The plot thickens!

She takes George home, and he of course interacts with modern day stuff. Thankfully, it’s not over-done and it is funny to see them to a variation on the tree gag by having him hit an oncoming car’s door.

Oh, and he uses the shower and makes the girls watching cream their panties. (Seriously, the YouTube video I watched this from has tons of “HE’Z HAWT” comments.)

And yes, he is standing naked and wet in this bit, and yes, they do imply Ursula sees….yea. (And her hot friend Betsy sees it too, mind you)

And yes, they do the Austin powers thing.

Anyway, she also kind of has not told her mom that her fiancé is evil and in jail and has picked up a half-naked jungle king. This movie is weird.

So Ursula goes to speak to her mother about…that, and leaves George at home. This goes as well as you imagine. George runs off against her wishes and explores the wonders of the city. Oh and he sees a paraglider in danger and proceeds to save his life.

Ursula visits her mom only to find out she has thrown a big engagement party. Wait, how come Lyle, a well-known rich man, getting arrested hasn’t made the news?! You think she’d be informed about this!

Yea, so she can’t quite tell mom…but then she sees George’s rescue on the TV and goes out to meet him. George also gives her advice on how to tell mom about…all this. His advice is about as helpful as Ape’s dating advice.

Speaking of ape, he is captured by the bad guys back in the jungle, and Ape tells this bird dude to go contact George.

She tells her parents….and they are pissed of course.

Well okay, the dad is fine after a while, but the mom is stuck in bitch mode. She’s made that she does not want to marry Lyle.

Of course she forgets Lyle is in jail and Ursula even tells her this. Whatever, this movie has a John Cleese ape; I can forgive this plot hole.

At a little get together, the mom speaks to the mayor and he wants to see Lyle.

…Really? The mayor wasn’t informed about Lyle being evil and shit?!

Okay, whatever. John Cleese ape dude, remember the John Cleese ape../

Anyway, she and her hot friends stare at her new jungle boyfriend who is with a horse for some reason.

“What is with chicks and horses?”

Hey boys can be into horses too…

Insert brony joke here.

Mom speaks to George alone, and notices he likes Ursula, and she seems to return the favor. She…is not happy.

“If you do anything to upset this wedding, I remove the reason for wearing a loincloth”

…

You know-for kids?

And I need to figure out a reason for them being obvious to Lyle being arrested. Perhaps they plan to bail him out for the wedding? U’s mom is rich, she could do that. But still, it’s never explained.

The bird reaches George, tells him about ape, and he races back to the jungle without telling anyone. Of course, she thinks George ran away due to what mom says. It’s cliché, but hey, this is a comedy with…well you know by now.

Ursula heads to find George, while Mom does not want her too and her husband is actually nice about this. And when mom goes to stop Ursula, the dad says this.

“God, that woman is a pain in the ass”

Castration jokes and the word ass. Fun for the whole family!

But yea I did find both of those jokes funny to be honest.

NARRATOR: Meanwhile, another ass was feeling pain.

…

Moving on.

Back with the ape-nappers, they continued to trek through the jungle as the narrator narrates and-

“Hey, why don’t you say something constrictive?”

“Maybe because I don’t like you”

“I hate you, stupid son of a-“

“Dude are you fighting with the narrator?”

“He started it!”

Hey, another funny scene. This movie may be cliché, but it is quite amusing.

They get distracted by the fight, which allows George to show up and kick some ass!

“Why do George have birds around head?”

..Okay his gets his ass handed to him. But THEN he grows some balls and kicks some at the same time/!

As the funny battle ensues, Ursula comes to kick ass…before hitting a tree. Nice to see they’ll switch that gag around.

George and Ursula kick some poacher ass and yada yada. Well, movie’s over!

“Lyle?’

What?

NARRATOR: “Yes, Lyle. For he had escaped Jail and joined an obscure cult.”

Well…okay. I did wonder where Lyle went anyway/

. Having been made a minister by his cult, Lyle intends to marry himself to Ursula immediately.

Yea, no one noticed he went missing. Sorry I keep harping on this, but it’s a major plot hole.

So Ursula is now kidnapped by Lyle. She actually does try to fight back and is clearly still a strong woman. Looks like she gave dumbass in distress disorder a nice kick in the balls!

We get a funny chase that I will skip over for time. George chases Lyle and Ursula as they float into some river rapids on a raft, then saves Ursula while Lyle enters a dark tunnel. After performing his wedding ceremony and exiting the tunnel, Lyle discovers that he has just married a gorilla.

And thus many fics were written.

So Lyle is down for the count and George and Ursula get married, with her parents finally being fine with this. There are more funny gags with the parents, George gets his queen, and they have a baby.

I’ll leave the making of it to the 34 art, thank you very much.

So he holds up the baby in an obvious lion king reference, and the narrator closes us out.

“I know what you’re thinking,. How does a baby raised by an ape grow up to be king of the jungle, find his queen, and live happily ever after?”

“George just lucky I guess”

And I am lucky as well. I found another good live action adaption. The end!

Final Thoughts:

This one was pretty decent. The actors did very well in their roles, Especially Brendan Fraiser. The comedy works very well, and I even laughed at the old tree gag a few times. The movie knows it’s stupid and doesn’t pretend to be anything other than a gag fast. It is cliché, but not overly cliché like Garfield. Again, it knows what it is and works with it. My only problem is that some jokes were a bit too stupid, and of course that giant plot hole I pointed out. It’s a good movie, and a good adaptation, but it’s not nearly as fun as our last offering.

GRADE:B+

Man, these GOOD movies are bringing me down. Why can’t I be reviewing a live adaption that sucks? I have so much fun with the good ones, but I need a change. I need one that is just awful and a disgrace to it's source materiel...

...I do this to myself.