Jungle 2 Jungle

Bomb Rating: 

"Jungle 2 Jungle" is proof that for every French filmmaker with a bad idea, there's an American filmmaker with a bigger budget willing to see that idea to its spectacularly disastrous end.

Strangely, the "Jungle 2 Jungle" screening I attended was sponsored by oneof those science fiction stores which are always named "Star"-something: the kind of place where loser geeks gather to talk about Star Trek or Star Wars and play "touch my Yoda." Predictably, when I sat down, two geeks behind me began debating whether George Lucas wears boxers or briefs. Then when the movie started, one of the geeks began talking to the screen and proceeded to spend the entire film loudly predicting what Tim Allen's next move would be. Such is the terrible legacy of Ritalin.

Odds are good that this scary fellow was interculturally linked to his soul-geek in France, where this film was originally titled "Un Indien Dans La Ville" before being released in the United States as "Little Indian, Big City" and eventually remade by Disney into its current incarnation, "Jungle 2 Jungle." The story hasn't changed: Man (Tim Allen) goes to remote island to meet long-forgotten ex-wife (JoBeth Williams) and finds that he has a son (Sam Huntington) he never knew about. By some fluke of bad scriptwriting logic, the man brings the boy back to the big city (in this case, New York) where confusion reigns because the boy is accustomed to urinating on plants and feasting on dung beetles.

"Jungle 2 Jungle" is proof that for every French filmmaker with a bad idea, there's an American filmmaker with a bigger budget willing to see that idea to its spectacularly disastrous end. What began as a simple scheme to rip off Michael Eisner to get back at him for EuroDisney will now likely evolve into an entire industry as French filmmakers scramble to conceive the next ridiculous plot contrivance that will spark a Hollywood bidding war.

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