JUNGLE 2 JUNGLE

You can take your family to this comedy for its steady laughs and its ultimately wholesome direction. The jungle-versus-civilization humor, dangerous-animal slapstick and Tim Allen’s comic performance give the movie real entertainment value.

The tradeoff is content that calls for discernment. There is too much bathroom humor, an offensive scatological line, several profanities and obscenities, alcohol and smoking. A relationship between 13-year-old Mimi and Richard’s daughter is encouraged, although nothing happens on screen. Michael’s implied living arrangement with his fiancée also falls short of the movie’s final celebration of marriage.

If your children are middle schoolers or older, WORTH THE TRIP — MIDDLE SCHOOL AND UP; younger children may need a parent’s judgment.

Michael Cromwell is a wealthy commodities broker who travels to a remote South American village to finalize his divorce from a wife he has not seen for 12 years. There he discovers that he has a 13-year-old son, Mimi, who knows the jungle far better than he knows modern city life.

Michael brings Mimi back to New York, where the boy’s jungle ways collide with Michael’s business world, fiancée and friends. The culture clash leads to comic adventures and forces Michael to reconsider what he truly wants.

Three stars means this is a very funny, solid family comedy with noticeable weaknesses. Tim Allen is at his comic best, and Sam Huntington is superb as Mimi. The pacing works well, and the jungle humor—including dangerous snakes, spiders and crocodiles—brings frequent laughter.

The supporting cast sometimes feels like window dressing. The bathroom humor is overused, and the film’s comic approach does not always overcome those rougher choices. Still, the movie succeeds as an entertaining story about a man learning to value fatherhood and marriage more than wealth.

The film’s central theme is the “noble savage,” played largely for laughs as Mimi’s jungle knowledge collides with modern civilization. The story also confronts the biblical roots of civilization, just as the anti-Christian philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau intended. Most of the New Age and pagan elements of the French story on which it is based have been removed.

What remains is a story that exalts family over selfish ambition. Michael begins as a wealthy commodities broker but learns that being a father and husband matters more than financial success. The film ends by restoring marriage and reuniting the family, which aligns with the biblical honor given to marriage and family.

The movie’s longing for a restored home points toward God’s design for family: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife” (Genesis 2:24).

This is a funny, imperfect family comedy with a good destination. Its language, bathroom humor and relationship concerns call for discernment, especially with younger children. But its praise of fatherhood, marriage and family gives the laughter a worthwhile heart. For middle schoolers and up, WORTH THE TRIP — MIDDLE SCHOOL AND UP.