Wolf Larson's TARZAN-15-KILLER'S REVENGE

 

Wolf Larson’s TARZAN-15-KILLER’S REVENGE

“I live for days like this.”

“Roger is lucky that he lives at all.”

“Mmm—uh.”

 

“Men who kill animals are cowards.”

 

“Aye, big monkey, if you come out, the woman is free.”

 

 

 

Simon’s journal is Tuesday the 15^th. In 1992 this could be September or December. As this is production 124, it has to be 1992 or very maybe 1993. If it is 1993 it must be June and June only. I wonder if these dates given are just random. The production number is 124, which is probably meaning that this is the second to last episode in production for season one.

 

Roger is taking shots of Jane and asking her if she’d like to be a National Geographics Centerfold, a new concept. A falling boulder almost hits Roger but Tarzan throws another rock at it to divert it away from the boy and he is only hurt in stumbling. Later, in the treehouse, Tarzan puts something that Roger thinks smells like fermented gym socks on his wound on his leg to help it. Tarzan tells Roger, “Complaining does not improve the smell.”

 

When Jane suggests water from rain moved the boulder as it shifted, Tarzan does not believe water moves boulders. Roger thinks he is cursed. When Roger goes to leave, Tarzan stops him with one hand on his shoulder.

 

Simon, in his junky compound, hears a new report: 43 year old lifer Bruno Valletti killed two guards and escaped prison with a machete and a machine gun which were reported missing. He is 6 feet 5 inches tall and around 200 pounds. A plane stolen from the Bendali (or Bengali) airport is believed to be in his possession.

 

Simon goes through a box of Ham Radio news flyers and finds a news report in a newspaper about this escaped prisoner: he’s a rhino poacher. Tarzan feels something is wrong anyway. In the treehouse, Jane kisses Roger’s cheek when he asks for just a little sympathy. Tarzan tells Roger some day, if Roger feeds the iguana, maybe the iguana will do something for Roger. In the most terrifying scene up to now, a laughing Bruno breaks in on Roger back at Jane’s camp where Roger tries to feed the iguana and fails. Bruno laughs like a psychopath and has a large hunting knife which he takes out. Then, in seconds, it goes to ridiculous as Roger dumps water on his own head when faced with a machine gun. Roger tried to fight him but a knife was just knocked from his hand, and when he tried a kick, he just fell on his butt.

 

Tarzan had captured Bruno and his brother with 45 kilos of rhino horn. Jane explains the horns sell for three hundred dollars an ounce on the black market as an aphrodisiac. Simon leaves to go to Roger. His jeep has that crack in its wind shield. Knowing there is a killer on the loose bound for revenge on Tarzan, Simon’s not exactly stealthy and promptly gets his head hit over by a glass. He saw Roger tied up.

 

In one of the best moments up to now, Jane tries to tell a non-listening Tarzan, who is invested in watching the egg Cheetah was sitting on for Jane, that she is very worried about him and that sometimes in all of her plans and projects it might seem that she does not care but she tells him she likes him, likes him very much and if anything ever happened to him she’s be very upset and unhappy. She wants him to know that the things that matter to her is NOT just herself.

 

She then hugs Tarzan after the hatching. What’s odd is we do not see the hatchling. We hear a shot and Jane falls in his arms (almost as in TARZAN FINDS A SON). When we come back from the ads, it looks like she’s shot in the shoulder. It is all oddly filmed.

 

Bruno’s brother was named Salvatore. It sounds like the prison was called Castle Vatali Regions or Prisons? What? They were there for three years. Three weeks ago Salvatore came down with the cholera.

 

Bruno has tied Simon and Roger up, gagged them, and left them in chairs tied back to back in the hut base with dynamite tied to a trap.

 

In another set of spectacular stunts, Tarzan swings behind Bruno, knocks him down, and then avoids his machine gunning. A thrown grenade knocks him out of the trees! Despite somehow Tarzan surviving the fall and jumping in front of Bruno, he ends up with a machine gun in his face and on his back, having to be rescued by Jane but Bruno gets the gun from Jane and shoves it into Tarzan’s face. He will then kill Jane. First, he will take her for a walk, which might imply something worse.

 

Not sure if Roger’s and Simon’s efforts cause it but a candle is on the wire to the stick of dynamite after Roger falls from his chair.

 

So what the heck happens next? Bruno has Jane in front of him and Tarzan has followed…and they are all UP in the treehouse now? What? Huh? How’d that happen?

 

Proving that Tarzan villains are the stupidest villains ever, he doesn’t see Cheetah hand Tarzan a metal dish nor that Tarzan has something behind his back. Even stupider, instead of killing Jane to hurt Tarzan, he says, “See who I want,” and he throws Jane down to face Tarzan.  Tarzan throws it in his face. Now, this dope had Tarzan at least ONCE where he could have killed him outright and between that and getting hit in the face with the plate, he could have shot Tarzan at any time. Why didn’t he? I guess he wanted hand to hand battle? Then why still use the gun?

 

The trap was set by Bruno who brags Tarzan’s two friends will soon be gone. It goes out but goes on again. Tarzan manages to get there just in time and cuts the wire with his knife, stopping the fuse from burning. Later, they all have a celebration dinner where they celebrate Bruno getting another 50 years. Simon says, “May your jungle always be peaceful.”   Roger says, “And may the next poachers you put away lose our address.”  Jane kisses Cheetah.

 

Mmmmm. Again, another sort of good episode. It was a mainstay of 1990s shows (and 1980s too) to sort of have a sort of romance. STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION was the worst offender by promising (well, many things they never delivered on) that Picard and Dr. Crusher would have some sort of romance and they never did. Instead, out of nowhere comes this mating of Trio and…and Worf? FRIDAY THE 13^TH: THE SERIES did sort of the same thing but wasn’t Micki cousins with Ryan even distantly? And there’s the over rated MOONLIGHTING and others. Some delivered like BEAUTY AND THE BEAST and LOIS AND CLARK and when their couples married or mated, it lost something. Here, we get ---after 14 episodes, Jane seemingly declaring strong ….erm, friendship for Tarzan? Romance? Hardly. BUT she does hug him and then they both look a bit…he looks lost, she looks happy and then she’s shot. And it’s almost as if nothing happened there….she says, “OW!”

 

Sigh.

 

The action is well staged as always, perhaps better as a grenade is used to down Tarzan from the trees and the fight is okay, even if Tarzan, FOR ONCE, LOSES! Yes, he does.

 

 

That the villain had everyone at his mercy more than once and failed to kill anyone is …well, no one wants to see any of these characters die but…having the villain so dumb is beyond me. Maybe if he expressed no desire to kill anyone but Tarzan this might have worked but more than once he declared he wanted to see Tarzan’s face when he killed those he cared about. And when he has his chance with Jane, he totally blows it more than once.

 

Again, there is a feeling more could have been done with this premise but a returning villain out for revenge has been done before and probably even in this show or at least a returning villain. For his part, Bruno is a strong adversary and the actor does a good job in making him insane and hateful, so there’s that. There’s also some great stunt work, even if the stunt double is noticeable on DVD, he wasn’t on regular TV of the 1990s.

 

ALSO: so much is made of the iguana helping Roger some day that I thought part of the resolution would be it put out the fuse. We don't even find out if it starts eating again and it's just forgotten about by the script and the production. Sigh again.