Episode 2: TARZAN MEET JANE (apparently they're going for the broken
English schtick even though they aren't writing the dialog that cleverly)
Directed by Jessie Lickman (write your own joke here)
Tarzan effortlessly outpaces a racing cheetah (meaning he must go like
100mpg) leaving behind a telltale purple streak, and yells ... something
completely unintelligible, as so much of the dialog on this show is. At
this point I give up and check to see if there are subtitles ... there
are! In several languages! And ... descriptive audio! In 5.1! I go
for it!
Okay, they explain all this stuff with the eye color ... I swear he's
reading the entire script!
The descriptive audio says it's a cheetah. The subtitles say it's a
leopard. Oh well. "Run for the trees!" was the dialog I couldn't make
out.
Poachers chase them. It's a good thing I turned on a guy reading the
script, because the animation doesn't support what's supposed to be
happening *at all* Somehow Tarzan swings on a vine over the poachers'
jeep, and the trailing end of the vine, through mechanisms unknown to
man, wraps itself around their waists and pulls them from the vehicle.
There's *no* way to know that's what's supposed to have happened from
watching.
"Muviro" is the black kid's name. He's cooking something. Tarzan drops
in. He's made stew but Tarzan can't come to the village so he's brought
it ... somewhere. I guess maybe Tarzan has a treehouse, but there's no
establishing shot of it, so I don't know where the Hell they are.
Descriptive guy says that Tarzan's blue eyes change color to signal what
animals powers he's using. Here they go orange to signify that he's
using magical cat x-ray zoom vision. The hunters that think the
gorillas nest (do gorillas nest?) means Tarzan may be nearby (um, how
about in that big hut?). Tarzan torments them which is actually the
kind of thing he liked to do in the book. The camera zooms into
Tarzan's mouth and zooms out FIVE YEARS LATER. Huh?
Older Tarzan still has the stupid dreadlocks. Now guys in loud
Hawai'ian shirts are using a drone to chase parrots.
Meanwhile in the city at night in the huge G building, an old man sees
the picture the drone transmitted and decides Tarzan must be his
grandson. Oh, that's what the huge neon G is for - GRANDPA! :D
Doctor Porter makes his annual visit and this time instead of bringing
along a blonde 'student' he brings his brunette daughter Jane (yes, they
got her hair color wrong. Tarzan's too for that matter). Porter has
brought pharmaceutical reps, not realizing they're evil, because
Porter's just that stupid. Jane's mother works in movies, and Jane's an
idiot and instantly gets lost. Tarzan saves her from a panther, yelling
the Tarzan yell at times when he not only shouldn't but couldn't. Being
completely safe high in the trees, Tarzan decides to go back down and
fight the panther, scaring him off by changing his eye colors.
Okay, this is actually cute. Idiot Jane assumes Tarzan speaks broken
English so she talks that way to him, and he uses the broken speech back
to her, playing along.
Tarzan takes her home where everybody but Porter sees Tarzan because
Porter is just that stupid.
Tarzan swings from a series of vines that hang down from far above the
highest tree top, like Spider-Man used to do in the original cartoon,
where Stan Lee said he must be swinging from passing dirigibles.
In the village, Porter asks about the ape boy that saved Jane because in
the previous scene everybody promised to never let him know.
Jane visits the medicinal orchid grove that blonde 'student' found 5
years ago and goes walkies with Tarzan. Jane explains she likes to put
peanut butter on every slice of apple which explains why she's so
stupid. Why does she speak like some moronic valley girl when her
father is British? Tarzan teaches Jane to vine swing while Tarzan
yelling, which she can do instantly just as well as him, despite not
being blessed with magic lion/goilla/leopard powers. Far too much time
is spent extolling the wonderfulness of peanut butter - whoever wrote
this has a Jimmy Carter agenda. Tarzan takes Jane home to meet the apes
nest. Finally we see the treehouse!
As Tarzan walks Jane home at night, an evil red helicopter appears!
Descriptive guy says it's the evil pharmaceutical reps, which is good,
because there's no other way to know, but where did they get an evil red
helicopter? Tarzan and Jane make a run for it, but Jane, in the best
tradition of idiot heroines, *instantly* catches her foot in a
convenient coiled rope (invisible to the casual viewer) and takes a fall
and is unable to do anything but yell for help. Evil red helicopter
snatches Tarzan in a magical net that you can drop from an evil red
helicopter, it self deploys, wrapping itself around the prey on the
ground, and goes back up to the evil red helicopter. Porter tells Jane
that this wasn't her fault because Porter is just that stupid. Somehow
everybody on the ground knows that that evil red helicopter in the dark
was not only full of pharmaceutical reps, but that they were actually
fakes. They must not only be watching the show with me, but listing to
the descriptive text as well, AND doing outside reading, 'cause I sure
didn't know they were fakes.
Back in the city, it turns out that Grandpa (who has everything marked
with a G) sent the evil red helicopter (which has it's stuff marked with
an H). They take Tarzan to G mansion. G knows all about how Kala
raised Tarzan, even though there's no possible way he could. They do a
lot of putting hands on shoulders in this, even though they slip and
slide like crazy because they don't have the tech to pull it off. They
do an extreme close up on Tarzan's face, far closer than advisable. It
looks like he's wearing Egyptian hieroglyphic eye makeup. Tarzan
notices on G's watch that it's after midnight, even though we've been
given no reason to assume that Tarzan has any concept of time telling.
And Š it ends.
In future episodes (that I won't be watching)
3: In the Urban Jungle
While navigating the challenges of high school and urban living in
London, Tarzan teams up with Jane to uncover an animal trafficking ring.
4: Dangerous Rescue
Tarzan and Jane face off against the animal traffickers, then, with help
from Tarzan's grandfather, devise a way to get the panthers Š
5: The Betrayal
After Tarzan rescues victims of a suspicious fire at a Greystoke
warehouse in London, reporters, including Jane's mom, accuse the earl of
Š
FLAG ON THE PLAY - Jane's mom is in the movies! How did she get to be a
reporter???
6: By Air and by Sea
Tarzan, Jane and the earl face more sabotage when they discover someone
has planted toxic pesticides at the Greystoke organic farm in Š
7: Chasing the Mastermind
While tracking the mastermind in Morocco, Tarzan and Jane learn that
Greystoke bulldozers have been stolen and are headed ..
8: Showdown in the Jungle
Tarzan and Jane fight to stop the poachers from bulldozing the village,
then set off to rescue the kidnapped Kala from a trap.
VERDICT
It's not awful, but it shouldn't have taken much effort to actually make
it good, either. I gave it 2 out of 5 Netflix stars.