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Herc
SPOILER ALERT !!
My advice? Hop down to blockbuster and rent “Human Nature,” the laugh-out-loud hilarious ape-man satire Charlie Kaufman wrote around the same time he did “Being John Malkovich.”
Hercules The Strong Says:
Tarzan captured. Tarzan escape. Jane pretty! Tarzan meet Jane, sport wood! Tarzan captured. Tarzan escape. Tarzan captured. Tarzan escape. Tarzan dull! Herc interest wane! Herc, Tonto, Frankenstein watch “Alias” and “Carnivale”!
TV Guide says:
Acting talent has never been a prerequisite for playing Tarzan. Why start now?
The Hollywood Reporter, shockingly, expresses little enthusiasm:
… fills the screen with cool ambience and hot bodies, but if it's something deeper you want, anything beyond rippling muscles, martial arts moves and soulful gazes, better reach for the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel … Tarzan escapes so often and so easily that he could give lessons to David Copperfield. … [Travis Fimmel’s] dialogue rarely exceeds four-word sentences, but then, he wasn't tabbed for this role because of his way with Shakespeare. He handles longing stares just fine. … in this series, the priority doesn't seem to be on character development. ….
Variety says:
… infused with scads of potential but also some problematic underpinnings. … some of the best roof-scaling acrobatics since "Spider-Man" … Unless they develop something to explain his timely arrival an unnecessarily grim addition to the hour. … Because Tarzan isn't the talkative type, Callies will need to be someone to whom the WB's youthful femme audience can relate, and while she's pretty enough, the character doesn't spark here. … producers will need a firmer grip on the premise if they want to reach the higher branches.
USA Today gives it two stars (out of four) and says:
Him Tarzan, me bored. … This series has a jungle-full of problems, but we might as well start with the insolvable one: underwear-model-turned-actor Travis Fimmel as Tarzan. … the spell is broken when he moves or speaks. … Still, even with a better actor, Tarzan would be no more than precisely what it is: yet another bland WB attempt to replicate the success of Smallville. Once again, we get a variant on the formula Smallville borrowed from Buffy: an old genre and familiar hero with a younger cast and a modern sensibility. … It's sort of Beauty and the Beast, only this being WB, it's actually Beauty and the Beauty. And yes, that's just as dull as it sounds.
The Los Angeles Times says:
the opening minutes, as the half-seen jungle king makes his first escape from urban captivity, are fantastically well executed and gripping as, for that matter, are all the action sequences … does not have any elephants, or much humor, or a sense of the absurdity of its premise. … Notwithstanding that he was already famous in underwear-model-watching circles, it is entirely likely that Fimmel will be merely the latest in a long string of actors — Lara, Elmo Lincoln, Jock Mahoney, Lex Barker, Gordon Scott, Mike Henry, Miles O'Keefe, Ron Ely and Weissmuller, among, I am afraid to say, others — who will eventually be remembered only because they once played Tarzan. … Fimmel is not half bad. He holds the screen at least as well as Callies, who looks stunned a lot of the time. … It's almost too obvious that Tarzan would be made, as he will be here, a crime fighter. …
Herc’s rating for “Tarzan” 1.1?
*1/2
The Hercules T. Strong Rating System:
- ***** better than we deserve
- **** better than most motion pictures
- *** actually worth your valuable time
- ** as horrible as most stuff on TV
- * makes you quietly pray for bulletins
9 p.m. Sunday. The WB.
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Feel Me?
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word up, dumb WB fucks
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It is horrid. Bad acting, bad plotline, bad dialogue, and an obvious underwear model in place of an actor. What ever happened to hiring actors to be in movies and TV shows instead of models, rap stars, and Playmates? Get this waste of time off the air before it finds an idiotic cult following like Mutant X and actually gets renewed or something equally scary.
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Richard Blake is going to be the flash, just you wait!
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Oct 05, 2003 8:12:57 AM CDT
Wait a sec... raise your hand if you HONESTLY believe this show
by largojr
a festering pile of horse-shit that has absolutely NO chance in hell of making it past January, even if they have enough eps allready filmed and in the can to get to the summer?
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Oct 05, 2003 8:52:42 AM CDT
Also.. Im curious. Do Actors & Actresses of shows that totally T
by largojr
PUT that donkey-ball sucking show on their resumes... or do they just claim they were at Betty-Ford for that period?
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Oct 05, 2003 10:27:50 AM CDT
So Angel almost got canceled to make room for shows like this?
by big bad clone
Oh course, this would probably pair up well with that shitty Charmed show. Pretty people in fetish shows (Valkarye Vixens and Loin Clothes!). BTW when will the Charmed girls have a French Maid "spell" cast on them? Oh, and waht's this about Mutant X having a cult following. Ugh, what a terrible thought.
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Oct 05, 2003 11:58:44 AM CDT
Here's hoping Time-Warner enjoys FLOP after FLOP after FLOP afte
by thewoodman
Lord knows they deserve it, having made laughing-stocks of Batman and Superman, with even more embarrassing projects in the works for Bats, Supes, Wonder Woman and the Flash... and now they've gotten bored with pissing on their in-house characters and are looking to extend their lameness to other areas of Pop Culture? I'll tell ya what, Warner's. You just keep on tanking... and we'll keep on laughing at you. Deal?
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This show is horrible. Worse than 'Brids Of Prey.' As bad as the first season of 'Smallville' got, that show AT LEAST had a very strong, almost cinematic, first episode. Because that show had a strong premiere and a moderately entertaining 1st season, it had enough steam to get to season 2 where it had a chance to fix old mistakes (krypto-freaks, etc.) 'Tarzan' on the other had, reaks of shit from day one. It will be gone by 13 eps. 'Smallville' mixes geek-bate (I'm a geek, don't take offense) with 'Dawson's Creek' romance to bring in SOME chicks. There is no audience for the 'Trazan' show because the action is lame so no guy is interested, and the story is lame so no girl would waste her time. In fact, the only people moderately interested in this show is a bunch of gay guys who want to jerk it to the guy that's half naked throughout the episode (and sometimes in the rain). They need to trash this show now, or get some Lana-Like-Trazan-Girl who runs around in a bikini. That won't save the show, but it will keep me interested enough to tape it and fast forward through each ep to see some T&A.
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....that literally anyone with half a brain could tell this Tarzan thing was gonna stank to high heaven from the very early rumors, only to be confirmed by the laughable trailers? Yet NO ONE up there in the WB exec offices who do this for a living had the notion to go "Wait a minute! This is a turd!!" Un believable. And yeah, really it would still be nice if they got ACTORS for roles. I mean Clark from Smallville already looks to me like he'd be more at ease posing in briefs while pouting his lips to the camera than trying to act on a set.... And now they get this half-assed 'fabio' to be tarzan? Wow, Tarzan moisturize really well! Tarzan have good hairdresser and manicurist! Tarzan need tanninng lotion now or Tarzan will sulk in trailer! Gawd, I only saw the cliched longingly-staring in the trailer and I'm already sick off it. As someone said, 'Angel' was almost canceled but THIS gets the greenlight???
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Firefly, Farscape, Buffy, B5... Oh erll, I'll just have to make due with a promising Angel, and hope for Battlestar Galatica in December.... Thank god for DVD's
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When has acting ever been an interest to the bean counters that run the great Hollywood machine? Oh, maybe a few dozen years ago, when overt sexuality was not the driving force of television. Like script writing, acting has taken a back to seat to how much sex we can get away with on free TV. As one person pointed out, mostly gay men might watch this show (and until today, I thought I would watch it). But even as a gay man, I want a good story and some better acting than card board stuff we watched on Dawson's Creek for six seasons. The thing is, sex is what is important. How much can the networks can get away with. The reason The WB dropped "Jane" from the original title, was because the show was going to follow the Smallville route. Action and a half naked Travis Fimmel is not enough to hang a show on. Star Trek Enterprise is trying the same thing this year; sex and action. But like poor boxer, both these shows (and many others that air on network TV) keep missing punch. Sure, there is a small amount of people who think TV should be mindless entertainment.
No heavy stories, no questions with no answers. Scantily clad women and men who resolve all their issues at the top of the hour. But while this group is small, TV executives believe they should listen to them, and not to the majority who don't mind the sex and action, as long as the story is interesting and the acting is good. This is being missed by 99.9% of producers. We are stuck, stuck my friends, in an endless nightmare of badly produced shows, who hang their premise on the thinist of waffers. For every brilliant shows like The Tick or Twin Peaks, there are 27 other shows (like Full House, Baby Bob, Yes, Dear, Still Standing, Star Trek Enterprise) that come back year after year for no reason. Network TV sucks. Now that's no big suprise. -
5.It's set in Modern day New York 4.Jane's a cop(I'm all for female empowerment, but sheesh couldn't they have picked a less cliched profession) 3.Tarzan's being played by an underwear model 2.Huge plot hole:If the uncle wants to keep control of the family company, why didn't he just kill Tarzan. And the No.1 reason I knew the show would SUCK is: IT'S BEEN DONE BEFORE YOU MORONS!!!!! HELLOOOOO, calling WB does TARZAN IN NEW YORK or TARZAN IN MANHATTAN ring a bell!!! I think congradualtions are in order here cause this must mark an all time low for creativity.
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That's who they should have looked for in their Tarzan. Also, they should stop "updating" Tarzan by putting him in a modern setting. The last time that worked whatsoever were the old Mike Henry Tarzan's in the mid 60s. They should go back to Edgar Rice Burroughs and never leave the jungle of the early 1900's and get someone like a young Kevin Sorbo as Tarzan.
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Oct 05, 2003 3:18:39 PM CDT
At least Jane is not a reporter. Esp. a internet news reporter.
by big bad clone
I still don't like her as a cop. I didn't like the cop on Birds of Prey, Charmed, or Angel. I get they are trying to ground the fantasy but it just seems to grate since impossibly good looking and fashionable "detectives" will grumble about their meager wage and chase down our heros. While it's not a bad concept per se. It just has not been done very well. Jane could have been an heiress, painter, social worker, trumpet player, actress, waitress, ad exec, head of a 5th string network that takes popular fictional characters and drops models into the roles. Shit, why not make her the obvious? An antropologist (sp)?
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The casting of an underpants model from Australia as Tarzan was brilliant. Just brilliant. It appeals to all sorts of demographics: gay men, lonely women, sexually dissatisfied housewives, people who wear underpants, people from Australia. Brilliant. Making Jane a cop was also very creative. Imagine the possibilities this brings to the table! Just look at all the excitement that fills an episode of Law & Order. Last night, that show had a villain who cut off women's feet and stole their shoes. I'm not sure if they caught that criminal, because I fell asleep, but maybe Tarzan and Jane could go after this creep (I nicknamed him Buster Brown). Both shows are set in New York, right? And I think it's very synergistic that the evil uncle in Tarzan seems to be just like Lionel Luther from Smallville. If a formula sort of works on one show, why not use it on another show and have its lead male character take his shirt off more. That makes it a totally different show, since one guy is from the planet Krypton and the other used to live in the jungle but doesn't live there any more and instead lives in Manhattan. I am very excited to see where this show goes. After catching that foot-stealing guy that's loose in NYC, Tarzan can solve a murder at a fashion show, he can stop a kidnapping at the Central Park Zoo by asking the polar bears what happened, and then he can guard a priceless diamond at the Met that another villain wants to use to build a freeze ray (and more synergy - this could be that foot-villain again, wanting to use the ray to freeze people's feet off). I'm telling you, this show has the potential to be the exectutive's most creative and sharpest synergy yet!
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Oct 05, 2003 8:17:52 PM CDT
Yes, but much more importantly is there or will there be a monke
by big bad clone
A la Smallville. Pete Ross sucks. Just a poorly written character for any race. He's like Aqualad without the powers.
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First, I just posted compliments to you on the Alias talkback and now you go and let me down. Quit posting your little comedy bits and get a job writing for a college radio show. I understand this show sucks, but is there some way to communicate that without the "witty" references. PS: Do you even know the definition of synergy? If not, don't try to talk about it.
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Oct 05, 2003 10:03:54 PM CDT
I'd like a "Carnivale" talkback as well, but we'll just have to
by 007-11
The thing I like best about "Carnivale" is that there isn't any extraeneous crap to deal with. None of the "weird for weirdnesses sake" kind of stuff you see in so many movies and shows like this. Everything has a purpose. Even if it doesn't make sense then, it will somewhere down the line. I'm also glad that it isn't clear who is the creature of dark and who is the creature of light. Could go either way at this point. Thoughts?
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Yeah, been enjoying Carnivale quite a bit, although eps. 3 & 4 haven't been as strong as 1 & 2. A lot of questions, but they seem to be dishing out answers just as quickly. Hope they can sustain this for the rest of the season. Anyone know if the crippled girl that Ben healed is played by the same girl in ep. 1 and 3? We've watched it twice but can't be sure.
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Oct 06, 2003 1:32:42 AM CDT
Geez, wish I had cable so I could watch stuff like Carnivale. I
by truthseekr1488
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Yup, that one is going on a bumper sticker!
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Oct 06, 2003 11:00:44 AM CDT
Once again, Hollywood proves it just CAN'T LEARN from past failu
by wardog
That is, taking an iconic classic of American literature and culture and putting a new spin on it to MAKE IT APPEAR fresh and imaginative. No, no, uh-uh, ain't gonna work! Those mindless fucking assholes in Hollywood must be so God-cursedly STUPID that they think all of us out here in TV-land are even more stupid, like we're just a bunch of joe-blow schmoes slouched in our Lazy-Boys with a beer clutched in one and the other squeezing the tit of our woman (or a part of ourselves lower down if we ain't got a woman), content to be illuminated by the soft glow of the TV and watch tawdry cheese- and/or beefcake and mindless action and derring-do. So all we GET is doo-doo. I just feel sorry for Mitch Pileggi. He deserves better than this, but FUCKING Hollywood won't give him more than a revival of In Search of (which gets quickly axed) and THIS abomination. Then again, I shouldn't feel sorry for him. He could always keep looking for better roles, or maybe he should fire his agent. God, I hate Hollywood. Once Arnold's governor, he should build special camps in the Mojave and send the studio execs there for "re-education."
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This thing stinks like the morning after a bean burrito and Pabst bender, but Herc still gave it 1 1/2 stars? Come on Herc, if it plops like a turd, and smells like a turd, it must be a turd!
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Oh wait, he's playing that here...my bad.
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Oct 06, 2003 3:40:17 PM CDT
Tarzan replaces Roy, Siegfried throws out the Viagra. Film at 11
by fred
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Worse than the stanky BIRDS OF GHAY fiasco ============ ...and the broad playing Jane looked old enough to be Tarzan's mom. ================ They should have had Underwear Boy hook up with Jane's hottie younger sister. Then the show would have still blown dogs, but at least Tarzan's attraction to her would have made some sense. ===================== Unless he's got an Oedipus complex? Naw... that would be far too deep for the chimps who write this piece of tripe. Word.
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I have seen shows that were beyond bad and made it to 5 seasons. BTW come on, compared to Birds of Prey, it deserves a freakin emmy.
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a good character actor (JUWANNA MANN, other films/tv).. i was surprised to see him here..
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Oct 07, 2003 6:54:37 AM CDT
I Sorry, But I'm Straight, and I can't Agree With You All, Becau
by the founder
I've seen far far worse on tv. I guess I fel into the hype, and went on and tuned in. Hey I can admit it, the show could have turned out good. The show is a terriably mixed bad, and it seems to want to be to much, and probably why it comes across as shyt to many. It has potential to me, but so much will need to be dropped. Get rid of the cliched evil uncle who wants to keep Tarzan's fortune, and I like the fact that Jane is a cop, and possiability of the crime element. Hey I can see that a show has potential if done right. Many it seems would rather have Tarzan in the jungle, and in the early 1900 hundreds, but to me been there done that. At anyrate I'll give it a couple of more shows and see where they go, but sadly I fear that it will play out like I think it will, and I'll give up by November.
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I glimpsed the TV guide cover at a friend's house, and thought the picture was of a woman. My friend said, "Yeah- HE looks like he was raised by apes." Apes with lotsa hair conditioner, maybe...
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Don't they ever have things like test-screenings or ask people in their target audience to watch it first and give some sort of approval? I mean, I bet a whole crapload of money has been wasted already, careers ruined and for what? BE ORIGINAL....sometimes I wonder how so much crap gets greenlighted in hollywood and then I turn on the TV and see these Kit-Kat and McDonalds commercials....its an epidemic.
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Did anyone expect Tarzan to be good? After seeing The Lone Ranger what were you expecting. Smallville works because its not that great a leap to update Clark's childhood to the present, its been done in the comics on a revolving basis for the past 50 or so years. And since Smallville is more exciting lets talk about that shall we.... Oh and I bought the Season 1 box set this weekend and went through most of the episodes again, for the first time since they aired. They're are quite a few freak-o-the-weeks but not as many as I thought. Out of 21 episodes there are 11 freak episodes, about 8 of them were worth watching, with the remaining 10 going to mythology of the show or interesting concepts/character development. The best episodes were definitely Zero (An episode about Lex's past), Rogue (bad cop knows Clark's secret), Stray (psychic Ryan's first episode, not a krypto-freak I might add), Leech (kid gains Superpowers, goes bad), and the Pilot just due to the good meteor sequence (though its odd to see the ship deisgn they used there which looks like a pine-cone compared to what they use now). Oh and it also answered one question I had at the end of Season 2: Clark holds up a "circuit-board" and says he has figured out what it is: the brain of the ship and puts it back in unleasing Jor-El. That board is in only one other ep, the Pilot, which is the first Kryptonian thing Jonathan shows to Clark. Enjoy.
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but i really dont think it was that bad. most of the new shows are getting slaped by people (by that i mean you)
so all i'm saying is just give it a chance its only the first ep.
i mean ok its not a masterpeace but i really dont think they deserve this kind of..um..what ever it is that u think. -
I concur that the ideal Tarzan needs a monkey, but the alpha breeding pair just oozed watchable charisma. It was utterly charming that John Clayton moves like my favorite siamang at the Seattle zoo. Okay, they took whole scenes from Angel and Gargoyles, but who doesn
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