GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE (41)

Directed by: Sam Weisman

Starring: Brendan Fraser, Leslie Mann, the voice of John Cleese

The Pitch: A "Tarzan wannabe" lives in the jungle with his faithful elephant and an ape named Ape.

Theo Sez: Something for everyone. There's cartoonish jokes - our hero spinning a lion round by its tail, or eternally swinging into trees ("Watch out for that tree!" warns the title-song). There's gross jokes, apes farting and elephants peeing ; there's spoofy jokes, upending the conventions of old jungle movies ; and there's old jokes - the gag about "awe" and "oooh" was already ancient when Mel Brooks used it in HISTORY OF THE WORLD PART I fifteen years ago. There's even post-modern jokes, an invisible narrator quarrelling with the onscreen characters and saying things like "Every story has to have a really big coincidence - so here is ours." It's the concept of Film-as- shopping-mall, guaranteed to satisfy the particular needs of every customer even if obviously different shoppers will be interested in different shops - what Disney execs doubtless call "inclusiveness". Fortunately it's not as irritating as other similarly over-manufactured products (SPACE JAM, or THE SANTA CLAUSE) : there's a patina of smart-ass goofiness holding it all together, and at least those jokes aimed at one's particular target group are actually funny (can't speak for the monkey-wiping-his-butt gag I'm afraid, but a six-year-old I know assures me that it worked for him). Still, even as you laugh, you know deep down that you're being suckered.