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It's finally time for me to get to this apparent travesty. I never had any good expectations for this one, not since I discovered its existence on the early days of Netflix when the "best guess on how much you'll like it" star ratings put this under two stars. I looked it up: turns out, that guess might've been right. I put it off for over a decade because I wanted to get more invested in the history of Tarzan in cinema, and now I can say I'm educated enough to tackle this one.
Much like the first of the Weissmuller series, this movie centers more around Jane than Tarzan. Bo Derek takes the role of Jane Parker in yet another collab with her director husband, John. Jane goes in search of her estranged father, who's more interested in finding an elephant grave full of ivory rather than building a connection with his daughter, although he still misses her. On their way through the jungles, they encounter a mythical being said to be a great white ape over ten feet tall: Tarzan, who's apparently just a hunky guy raised in the jungle.
When I first heard about this, my prediction for its bad rating was that it was a slow-burner with unconvincing animal interactions, minimal action due to budgeting issues of the time, and increased sexual content. And I hadn't even seen any jungle movies that operated that way before. Turns out I was totally right. Even the chimps look bored to be there.
To add insult to the injury of the original film's decision NOT to make Tarzan the clever genius he was in the book, they stick too faithfully to the movie's decision and waste these 110 minutes never once truly going into Tarzan's backstory. The vast majority of this movie is an unnecessary slog that degrades the legend into a hunky guy on the beach too stupid to speak properly, and is only there to watch a skinny blonde be hot. Honestly, I'm surprised the guy plating Tarzan, Miles O'Keeffe,isn't saying "bro." Actually, no I'm not, considering that Tarzan has NO development, NO personality and NO real skills to show off. There's no real stuntsmanship going on at all. Honestly, I remember this one surfer dork from the jungle cartoon Tak and the Power of Juju TV show who was more entertaining than him. He's there to be muscled up and make panties wet. When I saw how much beefier he is than ol' Johnny, I thought he might do something more impressive, but no.
Now let's go over the general John Derek movie flaws. This movie is absolutely no exception. Bo Derek might be expected to play an independent woman with money, but she certainly can't convince herself to scream in front of a prop snake. Her inability to get into character astounds me sometimes, given her fame, but then I just think back to her body, and as impressive as it is, instead of getting turned on, my brain just feels numbed by other people's inability to think. This ironically makes her a perfect wife for such a poor director. How slow does each scene really need to be? The whole psychedelic segment with the images of Bo Derek and snakes overlapping each other for like three minutes feels like the dumbest eternity a god could spend in any reality. It feels like the wrong kind of slow cinema.
There is one thing that's good about this movie: as one would expect, Richard Harris, playing the father, is a show-stealer, not that there was much if a show to steel. But eventually his dialogue and actions just get more and more confusing and ridiculous, like they were just finding something for him to act well during the climax. And one final "maybe ok" aspect is the occasional chuckle due to the poor delivery of some scenes.
Well, John Derek is so utterly bad that he completely ruined one of the greatest novels of all time (or at least made an overrated adaptation worse). What was even the point of making this a nearly two-hour movie? Even much of the erotica fails at maximizing that much. Other than Guido Malatesta's Tarzana movie which might not even count, this is easily the worst Tarzan movie I've seen so far.
= 15
John Derek's Directorial Score (0 Good vs. 5 Bad)
Fantasies: 4
Tarzan the Ape Man: 15
Ghosts Can't Do It: 15
Once Before I Die: 16.5
Bolero: 27
Average Score: 15.5 / 5
John Derek's position on my Worst Director's List does not change. He remains at #25 between Tony Zarindast and Robert F. Slatzer.
Tarzan the Ape Man
(1981) - Directed by John Derek
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Erotica / Jungle Adventure
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Erotica / Jungle Adventure
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"I don't dislike men. I envy them. I envy your freedom. I resent not having the same."
It's finally time for me to get to this apparent travesty. I never had any good expectations for this one, not since I discovered its existence on the early days of Netflix when the "best guess on how much you'll like it" star ratings put this under two stars. I looked it up: turns out, that guess might've been right. I put it off for over a decade because I wanted to get more invested in the history of Tarzan in cinema, and now I can say I'm educated enough to tackle this one.
Much like the first of the Weissmuller series, this movie centers more around Jane than Tarzan. Bo Derek takes the role of Jane Parker in yet another collab with her director husband, John. Jane goes in search of her estranged father, who's more interested in finding an elephant grave full of ivory rather than building a connection with his daughter, although he still misses her. On their way through the jungles, they encounter a mythical being said to be a great white ape over ten feet tall: Tarzan, who's apparently just a hunky guy raised in the jungle.
When I first heard about this, my prediction for its bad rating was that it was a slow-burner with unconvincing animal interactions, minimal action due to budgeting issues of the time, and increased sexual content. And I hadn't even seen any jungle movies that operated that way before. Turns out I was totally right. Even the chimps look bored to be there.
To add insult to the injury of the original film's decision NOT to make Tarzan the clever genius he was in the book, they stick too faithfully to the movie's decision and waste these 110 minutes never once truly going into Tarzan's backstory. The vast majority of this movie is an unnecessary slog that degrades the legend into a hunky guy on the beach too stupid to speak properly, and is only there to watch a skinny blonde be hot. Honestly, I'm surprised the guy plating Tarzan, Miles O'Keeffe,isn't saying "bro." Actually, no I'm not, considering that Tarzan has NO development, NO personality and NO real skills to show off. There's no real stuntsmanship going on at all. Honestly, I remember this one surfer dork from the jungle cartoon Tak and the Power of Juju TV show who was more entertaining than him. He's there to be muscled up and make panties wet. When I saw how much beefier he is than ol' Johnny, I thought he might do something more impressive, but no.
Now let's go over the general John Derek movie flaws. This movie is absolutely no exception. Bo Derek might be expected to play an independent woman with money, but she certainly can't convince herself to scream in front of a prop snake. Her inability to get into character astounds me sometimes, given her fame, but then I just think back to her body, and as impressive as it is, instead of getting turned on, my brain just feels numbed by other people's inability to think. This ironically makes her a perfect wife for such a poor director. How slow does each scene really need to be? The whole psychedelic segment with the images of Bo Derek and snakes overlapping each other for like three minutes feels like the dumbest eternity a god could spend in any reality. It feels like the wrong kind of slow cinema.
There is one thing that's good about this movie: as one would expect, Richard Harris, playing the father, is a show-stealer, not that there was much if a show to steel. But eventually his dialogue and actions just get more and more confusing and ridiculous, like they were just finding something for him to act well during the climax. And one final "maybe ok" aspect is the occasional chuckle due to the poor delivery of some scenes.
Well, John Derek is so utterly bad that he completely ruined one of the greatest novels of all time (or at least made an overrated adaptation worse). What was even the point of making this a nearly two-hour movie? Even much of the erotica fails at maximizing that much. Other than Guido Malatesta's Tarzana movie which might not even count, this is easily the worst Tarzan movie I've seen so far.
= 15
John Derek's Directorial Score (0 Good vs. 5 Bad)
Fantasies: 4
Tarzan the Ape Man: 15
Ghosts Can't Do It: 15
Once Before I Die: 16.5
Bolero: 27
Average Score: 15.5 / 5
John Derek's position on my Worst Director's List does not change. He remains at #25 between Tony Zarindast and Robert F. Slatzer.