THE MOVIE

What am I doing reviewing George Of The Jungle, you may ask. Well, as it turns out, it is actually close to one of the most watched dvd's in my collection. I originally purchased this title off a friend as part of a bulk purchase of titles he was selling. One night while my wife was sick in bed and I just couldn't sleep, I got up, went to the lounge, put on my headphones and thought I might as well watch this movie for a bit of light viewing as I half expected it to send me to sleep. Perhaps as a combination of it being 3am, me in a slightly hallucinatory mood, and having only just watched Dudley Do Right a couple of weeks before, I ended up finding this a real treat. Then, a few days later when my 5 year old niece came over to visit with her folks, she asked me to put on a dvd. So, my collection isn't really geared towards viewers under the age of 6, but then I remembered George Of The Jungle and A Bugs Life. As she had already watched A Bugs Life a few times on DVD and on video with her own copy, I thought I'd put on George Of The Jungle. And what a great decision it turned out to be. With the cool use of the surrounds, her parents keep asking "I heard something behind me, what the hell is going on?" When I explained it was the sound from the DVD their daughter was watching, they took an interest in the movie themselves. Soon, all eyes were on the movie, and I was suprised to see a bunch of 30+ year old people watch George Of The Jungle with as much enjoyment as the 5 year old. Needless to say, from that day on, my niece asks me to put on this DVD when she visits. Most of the time, I find myself watching it with her, because I look forward to the silliness that force me to remember that watching movies can be just plain old fun, and not brain taxing like some of the more serious films we occasionally force upon ourselves, creating that sense of exciting wonder like when we were children looking forward to the big excursions into the great big exciting world outside of the school grounds.

So, that is what I'm doing reviewing George Of The Jungle.

THE TRANSFER

Video:

Presented in Pan & Scan 4:3, this is the one most disappointing flaw about the transfer. But to be totally honest, this is one of those movies where I don't really care about the integrity of the directors vision and the original aspect ratio (which was 1.85:1, I think). Where it counts in regards to colour, detail, saturation and artifacts it does a fine job. The are a few minor cases of compression artifacts, but with the lively and lush looking sets and costumes, you won't really notice, nor mind, the problems. And for the kiddies watching, they won't be distracted with a smaller picture caused by letterboxing.

Audio:

A nice bright and lively transfer which is active in the use of all channels. For the kind of movie this is, I don't mind if the audio activity is a little overly bright and exaggerated, as it actually adds to the childish appeal and sense of fun. You won't have a problem following the dialogue as it mainly consists of very simplified speech spoken loud and clear for the benefit of the younger ones (but there is some very good more adult oriented humour). The action onscreen is well supported with lots of dynamic sound, such as the introduction of George's pet elephant.

THE EXTRAS

We don't get any extras with this DVD, unfortunately. But it's no big deal, and hardly a suprise anyway, because I was more than happy to just spend time watching the movie.

SUMMARY

Okay, try to remember that I liked the film for its childish, regressive fun. For that reason, I gave it a pretty good score. I think the kids will like it, and that's primarily who it's aimed at. As a work of art-well, that's another story all together.