I first watched this live action Disney flick shortly after it came out in video in 1997. It was around the time of my eleventh birthday, and I was very pleased with the film, enough to watch it more than once. I don't know exactly how many times I watched it, but definitely several times. Years later, after seeing that the IMDb rating for "Jungle 2 Jungle" was low, I finally watched it again, for the first time in I don't know how long, and like I expected, it no longer meant much to me.
Michael Cromwell is a commodities broker in New York. It has been years since his wife, Patricia left him, and he now has a new fiancé, but before they can marry, he must go down to the Amazon (where his first wife now lives), to make the divorce official. While there, Michael learns that he has a son, who is part of the primitive tribe that Patricia now lives with! His name is Mimi-Siku, and while Michael is stuck on the island, the boy turns thirteen, the age which he is considered a man in this tribe. Mimi is assigned by the tribe's chief to go to New York and get the fire from the Statue of Liberty, so Michael reluctantly takes his son home with him. Mimi-Siku has always lived very primitively, and has never experienced city life, so while in New York, he is bound to unintentionally cause trouble!
Watching "Jungle 2 Jungle" after my adolescent years had come and gone, I didn't find it very funny at all. I smiled a few times (mostly the parts where Richard Kempster, Michael Cromwell's co-worker, played by comedian Martin Short, throws fits) but if I ever actually laughed, it was very slight, and if I saw the gag again, I probably wouldn't laugh at all. For the most part, I kept a straight face, and found most of the movie quite simply boring. There are also some jokes that are a tad embarrassing, such as Michael Cromwell lying awake in his hammock on the island while others around him are constantly farting in their sleep, and quite a few embarrassing quotes that are supposed to be funny.
It appears that Tim Allen has starred in a lot of movies that haven't been too well received. "Jungle 2 Jungle" is one of those movies, and right now, I can understand why. Overall, this is a mediocre Disney feature in my opinion, though many consider it lower than that. After enjoying this movie when I was eleven years old, then watching it again after growing up and not thinking much of it, I would say that it's definitely for the younger folk, and for adults, there are definitely comedies of this kind (ones about someone living a primitive lifestyle somewhere in the world and coming to a city for the first time in their lives) that are much more likely to impress you.
