Tarzan goes to New York to rescue the chimp Cheetah, who has been captured by an evil animal experimenter. There, he teams up with Jane, a cab driver and daughter of an ex-cop private eye, who help Tarzan free Cheetah and his friends.
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***Tarzan travels to The Big Apple to find Cheeta*** The first half is surprisingly great, as entertaining as any Tarzan flick you care to mention, just on a television movie budget. Burroughs’ character is transplanted to the 1980s, so expect some deviations from the 1914 novel. Joe Lara was the eighteenth actor overall to portray the Ape Man and would go on to play the part in the 1996-1997 TV series Tarzan: The Epic Adventures for 22 episodes. Petite brunette Kim Crosby is cute as Jane Porter, but she only dabbled in acting, so you’ll be hard pressed to see her in anything else. Tony Curtis welcomely shows up as Jane’s father; he was 63yo during shooting and still had his beaming charisma. Jan-Michael Vincent is also on hand as the villain. Unfortunately, the second half devolves into by-the-numbers mediocrity with prosaic action scenes and the corresponding explosions. Nevertheless, the ending is heartwarming and the amusing first half is worth the price of admission. It runs 1h 34m and was shot Jan-Feb 1989 at The Burbank Studios in SoCal with the opening jungle scenes done in Hawaii and some bits filmed in Manhattan. GRADE: B/B-
