Jungle 2 Jungle (1997)

Michael Cromwell, a New-Yorker, suddenly learns that he has a 13-year old son that's been raised in the jungle. He brings the boy to New York, and that's where the fun starts...

Director:

John Pasquin

Writers:

Hervé Palud (earlier screenplay Un indien dans la ville), Thierry Lhermitte (earlier screenplay Un indien dans la ville),

Stars:

Tim Allen, Martin Short, JoBeth Williams

3 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Tim Allen	...	Michael Cromwell
Martin Short	...	Richard Kempster
JoBeth Williams	...	Dr. Patricia Cromwell
Lolita Davidovich	...	Charlotte
Sam Huntington	...	Mimi-Siku
David Ogden Stiers	...	Alexei Jovanovic
Bob Dishy	...	George Langston
Valerie Mahaffey	...	Jan Kempster
Leelee Sobieski	...	Karen Kempster (as LeeLee Sobieski)
Frankie J. Galasso	...	Andrew Kempster
Luis Avalos	...	Abe
Carole Shelley	...	Fiona
Dominic Keating	...	Ian
Rondi Reed	...	Sarah
Oni Faida Lampley	...	Madeleine

Storyline

Michael Cromwell, a New-Yorker, suddenly learns that he has a 13-year old son that's been raised in the jungle. He brings the boy to New York, and that's where the fun starts...

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Plot Keywords:

jungle | 13 year old | venezuela | divorce | tribe | 

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Taglines:

Get a little savage.

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Genres:

Comedy | Family

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG for some mild violence and language

Details

Country:

USA France

Language:

English

Release Date:

7 March 1997 (USA)

Also Known As:

De jungla a jungla

Filming Locations:

Canaima National Park, Estado Bolívar, Venezuela

Box Office

Opening Weekend:

$12,812,047 (USA) (7 March 1997)

Gross:

$59,925,026 (USA) (5 September 1997)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Walt Disney Pictures, TF1 Films Production

Technical Specs

Runtime:

105 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital SDDS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

In addition to relocating from Paris to New York, the character Mimi-Siku was made much older than the preteen in the French version. This was largely due to Americans' general discomfort with young love, under the explanation that "a teenager can get into more trouble." Additionally, despite American Mimi-Siku's having lived in the wild, there's less difference in the skin tones of the two male leads than in the original French film. This was done to emphasize their kinship.

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Goofs

You can clearly see the crew, director and camera in the mirror when Mimi-Siku is asked what he likes to eat in Michael's apartment.

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Quotes

[Michael and Richard are aguing about being a parent, while Richard tries to get Karen out of her room]
Richard Kempster: Oh, what? Are you suddenly Dr Spock here? You've been a father for three days. And you're giving me lessons? Well, that's good.
Michael Cromwell: You sound like an idiot.
Richard Kempster: I'm a parent! Therefore, I'm an idiot! I have spent every day for the last 12 years worrying about my kids. About their safety, about their happiness, about their crooked teeth.

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Connections

References King Kong (1933)

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Soundtracks

"You Can Do It"
Written by Stanley A. Smith and Jilien Manges
Performed by The Sha-Shees (as The Sha Shees)

User Reviews

Painting by genre numbers in a pointless and largely enjoyment-free film

Michael Cromwell is a successful New York stockbroker looking forward to his marriage to a successful fashion model. However before he can do this he must finalise the divorce from his wife, who left him about 12 years ago. Unfortunately she lives on a tropical island off the coast of Brazil and he finds himself stuck on the island with her. If that wasn't bad enough he learns that the pale, 12 year old member of her tribe (Mimi-Siku) is actually his son. In order to avoid looking at the morality of her not telling him about this life, the story then requires Mimi-Siku to go to New York for reasons too boring to explain and "laughter" ensues and Michael learns some lessons that we all saw coming from a mile off.

It is rare for me not even to have the energy to type a decent plot summary for a film but for this one I make an exception. Part of the problem is the fact that the plot manages to be embarrassingly predictable from start to finish and provides nothing of value along the way. This is only made worse by the lack of laughs and the regular scenes of Mimi-Siku failing to fit in, one of the most embarrassing of which sees him dancing with his father on the street. It is a string of obvious scenarios all run together just as you'd expect and there is nothing of any interest developed along the way. There are plenty of "wild fish out of water in big city" films already kicking around and this offers no reason to add this to the list of the ones you've seen.

The cast are equally lost in the midst of all this stuff and resort to mugging and overplaying at every opportunity. Obviously Allen was going to do this anyway since this is what most of his films tend to be like. Martin Short does the same here and at least gets one, maybe two laughs as a result – which is more than Allen. The clearly well-off and white Huntington is hilariously poor as the boy of the film, he doesn't convince in any part of the film and is a big part of it being embarrassing. The rest of the cast have little to do and even a turn from Stiers adds no value.

Overall a roundly poor film that takes the "wild fish out of water in city" genre, ticks as many boxes as it can, writes lots of predictable and weak scenarios and places them all within a story that is so poorly developed that you pretty much know where it is going from the very start. No laughs and no interest – it might work as noisy nonsense to distract children but it has no value past that.