Overlooked Movies: Tarzan and the Lost City

Once again, and to the surprise of absolutely nobody, here's another movie that the critics and most audience members didn't like but that I liked quite a bit.  I've seen a lot of Tarzan movies in theaters, starting way back with the ones starring Johnny Weismuller.  Later on I saw some of the earlier Tarzans on TV (Herman Brix and Buster Crabbe).  Caspar Van Dien stacked up pretty well, I thought, but I'm in a minority on that.  Well, I agree about the English accent.  Probably wasn't a good idea for Van Dien to try it.

The "lost city" of the title is, of course, Opar.  Tarzan is in England about to marry Jane, when he has a vision that there's trouble back in Africa.  So off he goes to set things right.  Some bad guys are looking for the lost city, and if they find it, more people will come to Africa and mess thing up.  Not an unusual plot for a Tarzan movie.  Jane follows Tarzan back to Africa, which introduces another not unexpected complication.

The movie was filmed in Africa, which is a big improvement over some of the backlot Tarzan movies.  The scenery's great.  Van Dien (not counting the accent) is just fine, and so is Jane March as Jane.  The action's not bad, and while I was a bit bothered by the use of magic at the conclusion, I didn't let it keep me awake at night.  Check it out.