Welcome To The Jungle (DVD)

Beck is a “retrieval expert”, who is tired of collecting debts for the Mob and just wants to retire and open his own restaurant. So his boss Billy Walker gives him one last job; all he has to do is go down to the Brazilian jungle, find Walker’s errant son Travis and bring him back to LA to face the music. The only thing is Travis is on the trail of a priceless gold artefact that both the local guerrillas and the local gold-mining despot want to get ...
...dragged along for the ride with the rebels and the bad guy in hot pursuit.

If you hated the big dumb action blockbusters of the eighties, you’re really going to hate this. It has lots of big fights, loud noises, explosions, a hero with a neck like a tree trunk, an annoying sidekick, virtually no social conscience and only the slimmest of plots. If on the other hand you’ve been wondering why they don’t make them like that any more, ... more

Beck is a “retrieval expert”, who is tired of collecting debts for the Mob and just wants to retire and open his own restaurant. So his boss Billy Walker gives him one last job; all he has to do is go down to the Brazilian jungle, find Walker’s errant son Travis and bring him back to LA to face the music. The only thing is Travis is on the trail of a priceless gold artefact that both the local guerrillas and the local gold-mining despot want to get their hands on too. Before he knows it, Beck is dragged along for the ride with the rebels and the bad guy in hot pursuit.

If you hated the big dumb action blockbusters of the eighties, you’re really going to hate this. It has lots of big fights, loud noises, explosions, a hero with a neck like a tree trunk, an annoying sidekick, virtually no social conscience and only the slimmest of plots. If on the other hand you’ve been wondering why they don’t make them like that any more, this is going to be precisely your cup of tea. But this being the new millennium, it’s the new breed of buddy action movie. I suppose the closest anyone came to it in the eighties was in the “Lethal Weapon” franchise. Yes, it has lots of stunts and fisticuffs in it, but it’s funny and unusually for an action hero, the Rock can act.

Director Peter Berg is better known as that actor from “Chicago Hope”. He turned to writing and directing with the critically mauled “Very Bad Things”. He may have found his niche with this type of action movie. Much like its star, it’s muscular but not without intelligence or humour. The style is nothing new but if it ain’t broke why fix it? The editing keeps the action moving at a merry pace and the director has stolen one or two visual flourishes from the masters of the genre, with multiple angles and slow motion rearing their heads during the action sequences. Berg has managed to tease good performances out of his cast, especially the relatively inexperienced leading man. He has also kept a high gag ratio and for every punch there is a punch-line to match. So it’s a well balanced film, which though it may not be a classic of the genre will still put a lot of bums on seats and provide a lot of people with a good couple of hours of entertainment.

Ever since the Terminator turned Governator, Hollywood has been holding out for a new hero to take his place. For a while it looked as though Vin Diesel might be the man for the job. Then he released the abysmal “Triple X”. I think the Rock is in with a definite chance. He managed to hold his own in both “The Mummy Returns” and “The Scorpion King” but this film gives us some idea of what he’s really capable of. Sure he’s big and brawny like Arnie (he stands at six foot four), but he’s not all muscle. Unlike Mr S, he has trained as an athlete and not a weight-lifter, which means that his thighs don’t rub together when he runs and he has an ease of movement that the Austrian Oak was entirely missing. As a former professional wrestler, he is very nimble and more than capable of remembering complex fight choreography and dodging punches, which came in handy here. But where he stands out from the Van Dammes and Seagals of this world is that he can REALLY act. Beck would rather avoid conflict than beat the living daylights out of his opponents. In the opening scene where he has to collecting a gambling debt from one of his sporting heroes, he would rather talk the guy into giving in gracefully than ruin his sporting career and you can see the turmoil behind his eyes. He has the ability to emote and it’s refreshing to see. He copes well with the script, making dialogue believable, though he is more than able to reel off the odd quip when required. Plus he has enough charisma to hold the attention of your average cinema-goer. I don’t expect him to win an Oscar, but I’ll be intrigued to see what he does next.

Seann William Scott plays two types of characters; those who are mildly annoying and those who are incredibly annoying and Travis Walker is no exception. To be fair they are characters he plays really well, it’s just a shame that they are all shades of Stifler. Here he gets most of the best lines (“Establish dominance!”, “Fierce gaze!”) and shows he’s capable of handling action when the need arises. Although he seems to spend most of his time taking a beating. He has a good level of chemistry with the Rock, but an alarming lack of it with love interest Rosario Dawson. Plus he speaks Portuguese as though he understands what he’s saying, which is always a bonus.

Gold mine owner and all-round bad guy Hatcher is played by everyone’s favourite wild-eyed film psychopath Christopher Walken. As usual, there is a distinct whiff of gammon about his performance, but this kind of pantomime is something he obviously relishes. He manages to be hammy but menacing, which is rare amongst film villains these days. He’s definitely not a character you’d want to bump into on a dark night, especially if you’d done something to upset him – he’s just a little too eager to shoot first and not bother to ask questions later. And he gives the most bizarre explanation of the tooth fairy I’ve ever heard.

Rosario Dawson plays Travis’ love interest Mariana who is a barmaid by day and rebel leader by night. Frankly she’s more convincing as the barmaid. That’s not to say Dawson does a bad job, it’s just that her role is woefully underwritten and she spends most of her time trailing after the men or playing the damsel in distress. Her relationship with Travis doesn’t have the necessary chemistry to be believable and her diatribe against Hatcher and capitalist society is too clumsily written to be resonant.

Ewen Bremner is probably best known for his role as Spud in “Trainspotting”. Here for some reason beyond my ken he is playing a Northern Irish pilot by the name of Declan. His accent isn’t terribly good and is virtually impenetrable. His character is almost entirely redundant and if he’s playing an Irishman, why on earth does he tip up at the climax wearing a kilt, playing the bagpipes and quoting Dylan Thomas? Is it just me or do the Americans get a bit confused about the Celtic nations? And why do they want so many Scots to pretend they are Irish? It didn’t work in “The Last Samurai” and it doesn’t work here. Anyway Bremner does his best with a totally random character, but his appearance doesn’t add anything to the film.

Ernie Reyes Jr (who was the kid in “Red Sonja” and one of the guys in the turtle suits in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”) appears as Manito, one of the rebels fighting Hatcher. He doesn’t have much dialogue and what he does have is in Portuguese with a heavy American accent. But what he does very well is fight and his capoeira-influenced face-off with the Rock is one of the highlights of the film. Admittedly, there is reliance on wire work and some speeding up of footage, but this guy is still really fast and talented. I’d love to see him square up to Mark Dacascos from “Brotherhood of the Wolf”.

In the most obvious case of baton passing I’ve ever seen Arnold Schwarzenegger appears in one scene, tells Beck “Have fun”, sneers and then walks off screen. So it looks like the artist formerly known as Dwayne Johnson gets the thumbs-up from the big man too.

An action film lives or dies by its set pieces. There are plenty here and they are all of high quality. There is a blatant rip-off of an Indiana Jones/ “Romancing the Stone” set-up, but they aren’t bad films to steal from. You can feel the blows during the fights, there is a nice use of the Brazilian martial art capoeira when Rock takes on the guerrillas, good whip work from the despot’s henchmen and suitably flashy gunplay. Something tells me that this is a film the stuntmen relished because all the falls and fisticuffs look so realistic. This is exactly what leads me to question the decision to certificate this film as a 12A – the fight scenes are so realistic they are bordering on the brutal, many of the characters have no regard for the human consequences of their actions and there is one use of the c-word, although it is delivered in a virtually impenetrable Northern Irish accent, so may have slipped by the censors. But on no account would I take a child under the age of twelve to see it. I don’t think I’d even be happy about anyone under the age of fifteen watching it on their own.

If you enjoy subtle witticisms, the comedy isn’t going to be to your taste. Most of it involves people being punched and kicked in new and exciting ways. There are a couple of scenes involving the hallucinogenic properties of Brazilian fruit and one instance of a man’s face being humped by a monkey. So if you’ve ever laughed at a Tom and Jerry cartoon or think baboons are hilarious, you’ll laugh until you cry. Similarly the special effects are nothing to write home about - the hallucinations look as though they've been put together on someone's PC. But they are still amusing.

The soundtrack has no coherent theme running through it and appears to have been taped together from whatever the director happened to be listening to at the time. It features Portuguese pop, honky-tonk, hip-hop and dance. The tracks used complement whichever scene they are in, but as a compilation I can only assume they make no sense.

As films go, this is a total no-brainer. It is brash and stupid but thoroughly enjoyable but it isn’t going to change your life in any conceivable way. Just sit back and enjoy the ride with a group of friends and a big bucket of popcorn and then forget it entirely.
 

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