Tarzan and the Lost City | |
---|---|
Theatrical poster
|
|
Directed by | Carl Schenkel |
Produced by | Stanley S. Canter Dieter Geissler Michael Lake |
Written by | Bayard Johnson J. Anderson Black (screenplay) |
Based on | Characters created by Edgar Rice Burroughs |
Starring | |
Music by | Christopher Franke |
Cinematography | Paul Gilpin |
Edited by | Harry Hitner |
Production
company |
|
Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
Release date
|
April 24, 1998 |
Running time
|
93 minutes |
Language | English |
Budget | $20 million |
Box office | $2,172,941 |
Tarzan and the Lost City is a 1998 American action-adventure film directed by Carl Schenkel, and starring Casper Van Dien, Jane March and Steven Waddington. The screenplay by Bayard Johnson and J. Anderson Black is loosely based on the Tarzan stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
One of the film's producers, Stanley S. Canter, had produced another Tarzan film for Warner Bros., Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of The Apes, back in 1984.
In 1913, on the night before Jane Porter's wedding to John Clayton (also known as Tarzan), her bridegroom receives a disturbing vision of his childhood homeland in peril. Much to Jane's distress, Clayton leaves for Africa to help. The educated explorer Nigel Ravens is seeking the legendary city of Opar, to plunder its ancient treasures. But then Jane decides to follow her fiancé, and he must protect her while trying to stop Ravens and his men.
The film was shot in South Africa.
German composer Christopher Franke, who had also worked on Babylon 5 and Universal Soldier, composed the original musical score.
The film received mainly negative reviews, criticizing the low budget production values, effects and writing, and has a "rotten" 6% on review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes.
However, a very rare positive review came from the New York Times, where critic Lawrence Van Gelder declared the film "A throwback to the days of Saturday afternoon adventures in exotic locales that were usually Hollywood back lots" and that it "zips along, past the ritual lions, elephants and cobras to the city of Opar and its temple of illusions, tunnels and traps, and right to the inevitable satisfying showdown."