"Jungle 2 Jungle" is a remake of the French comedy, "Little Indian, Big City" and stars Tim Allen as a self-absorbed broker. Michael Cromwell, who lives in New York City, and this is another brainless comedy from Disney that's forgettable. Wanting to marry his also self-absorbed finance, Charlotte (Lolita Davidovich.) Michael needs to obtain a divorce from his ex-wife, Patricia (JoBeth Williams,) who left him years ago. She lives with a Tribe in Venezuela and works with Indians. He travels to get a signature needed for the divorce, and she reveals they have a son together who is 13 years old named Mimi-Siku (Sam Huntington.) We don't see Patrica again until the end of the movie.
Mimi Ski is an interesting character, he's sweet-natured, and they do nothing with him. He's a MacGuffin for the story for Michael to become a better person in the end, and we've seen it before. He arrives at Kennedy Airport with Michael, and he wears a loincloth for most of the movie. He carries a blow-dart gun, shoots pigeons with a bow and wanders around the city, and climbs the Statue of Liberty. No one in their right mind would do this, and it's preposterous to think because he is from an Indian tribe, it's allowed for the sake of the story.
Michael, or as he's referred to in the movie "Baboon" is dating Charlotte because he is shallow. She is some sort of businesswoman, and we never see what she does. She's there to be a mouthpiece who is less than pleased that Mimi-Siku is living in her apartment, and there are constant jokes about him "eating the cat." She doesn't want her husband to have a jungle boy for a kid, and a mean spirit looms through the movie with constant "jokes" about Mimi-Siku coming from the Amazon.
Charlotte shows up a few times, but It doesn't matter because she's a useless character who is there for glamour and does nothing to help the story. Michael is too stupid to see the real person she is even tho he just found out that he has a son he constantly leaves with her because Michael's idiot friend, Richard (Martian Short,) gets them involved with Russian gangsters over a Coffee bean deal that went sour.
Nothing matters in the movie when it's a bunch of characters that mean nothing in a stupid story about a father and son, and they can't even get that right. Seeing Tim Allen run from a spider for attempted laughs is embarrassing. You know everything that is going to happen in the first twenty minutes of the movie, and it's predictable. No one is allowed to be smart, and the plot does not work unless a character is talking about something that does nothing for the story.
There is a basic idea here with "the fish out of water" story, but it's bare bones. Mimi-Siku was raised in a jungle, and his adapting to live in New York City is thrown to the side for attempted comedy routines such as him peeing in plants, and his pet spider scaring everyone for attempted laughs, and none of it is funny. There is a subplot with him falling in love with Richard's daughter, Karen (Leelee Sobieski,) and it's the best part of the movie. I would've rather seen a story about their adolescent and Michael teaching how to be a man, but that's too much to ask for.
The Russian gangster I mentioned earlier plays a big part in the second and third acts of the movie. He accepts an offer for coffee Beans, and when the stock plummets, he targets Richard's family and Michael. There is a ridiculous scene where they go to a fish market, and they are told a certain way to knock on his door, and it's embarrassing watching these two idiots ring the buzzer and knock on the door over and over before Alexei Jovanovic (David Ogden Stiers) Is introduced. He's there to add an "exciting" element to the film but it's mostly to show how dumb Michael and Richard are when they screw with the wrong person. This is a kid's movie, so the threat is minimal.
He believes they have cheated him on a business deal. He arrives at Richard's house and takes the family hostage. He ties Richard up in a chair and is about to cut his fingers off, something he seems to have a fascination for when Mimi-Siku drops his spider on him, and it's pathetic. I'm supposed to believe that Mimi-Siku's hunting skills taught Michael something throughout the movie when the two of them must save the day.
"Jungle 2 Jungle" is another misfire for Disney after the awful "That Darn Cat," I'm pleased to say this picture is better than that movie, but it's not enough when the story is bare bones, the characters mean nothing, and Tim Allen is not funny. Nobody is funny in this movie, and fart jokes about Indians in the Amazon are bottom of the barrel for Allen to crack jokes at, at an earlier scene in the movie.
1/10.
