Welcome to the Jungle

Amusing castaways-on-remote-island flick ruined by too much foul non-humor

The office team at a label design agency is sent on a retreat to a remote tropical island in order to build character and learn teamwork. When the ex-military motivational leader (Jean-Claude Van Damme) goes missing the urbanites find themselves reverting to a “Lord of the Flies” situation. Adam Brody, Eric Edelstein, Megan Boone and Kristen Schaal play the protagonists while Rob Huebel appears as the antagonist.

The tone of “Welcome to the Jungle” (2013) is similar to “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” (2005), just transferred to the jungle with Edelstein obviously standing in for Seth Rogen. I was mainly interested because I favor stuck-on-deserted-island stories (e.g. Gilligan’s Island and “Six Days Seven Nights”) and the trailer looked fun, especially Van Damme effectively spoofing himself.

While the movie is entertaining to a point, like the joke about Pinocchio, there’s too much vulgar non-humor for my tastes. For instance, there’s a “joke” where Schaal’s character, initially opposed to needless cussing, talks about going number 2 in terms of “taking a s***” in the jungle for like 2 full minutes. I hate to break it to the lazy scriptwriters, but cussing itself isn’t funny unless it’s used (1) in an amusing context and (2) sparingly. Otherwise it smacks of lack of imagination, juvenility and desperation. It’s more eye-rolling than anything else and I was seriously tempted to turn the movie off 35 minutes into it.

Van Damme’s daughter, Bianca Brigitte Van Damme, appears in a peripheral role as Ashley.

The film runs 1 hour, 35 minutes, and was shot in Puerto Rico.

GRADE: C/C-