Jungle 2 Jungle

Re-teaming with his Santa Clause director, but in warmer weather, Tim Allen bumbles forth with a clunker that's much more typical of his star vehicles than that charmed holiday debut. John Pasquin's Jungle 2 Jungle (and what's with that hip-hop number slang?) is dumb to the point of offensiveness, unable to shake its ridiculous opening in the jungle wilds, even as its subsequent acts round out into just a regular bad family comedy. The most immediate problem, other than Allen's jerk routine, is that the screenwriters didn't have a clue how to write a white kid raised among tribesmen. Even though he learned a full English vocabulary from his mother, an educated American, Mimi-Siku (Sam Huntington) says things like "Me like this" instead of "I like this." It's as though Bruce A. Evans and Ray Gideon used the earliest Tarzan movies as a model for his speech patterns. Once the action shifts to New York, two other actors wrestle for the honor of most annoying. Lolita Davidovich wants to see how many "bad love interest" clichés she can cram into one character, but far more distracting is Martin Short at his hammy worst, hijacking the most innocuous scenarios into chances to blurt out his trademark cowardly yawp. By the end, the redeeming powers of native simplicity are fully revealed, the big city fully repudiated. Sigh, ho hum, let's move on to Allen's next rancid fish-out-of-water comedy, For Richer or Poorer, released later that same year. At least the movie's failure spared us the confusingly titled sequel "Jungle 2 Jungle 2." ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide