Tarzan and the Rocky Gorge: A weird little trip into family nostalgia

Is it worth your time?

Honestly, it depends on if you like watching people play pretend. If you need high-stakes drama or fancy lighting, you will probably hate this. It is a home movie, through and through. But if you have a soft spot for grainy, old-school amateur filmmaking, there is something kind of sweet about the whole thing.

Robbins and John Barstow aren't exactly doing method acting here. They are just out in the rocks, swinging on vines—or at least, pretending to—and living out a fantasy. It feels like a Sunday afternoon that just happened to be caught on film. It’s got that raw, unpolished energy that you just don't get from a studio lot.

The vibe of it all

The pacing is entirely dictated by where the family felt like hiking that day. Sometimes the camera just lingers on a rock formation for a few seconds too long. It is not because it’s artistic, but because someone probably forgot to hit the stop button. I actually kind of love that. It feels real.

There are moments where you can see them trying to maintain the Tarzan persona while simultaneously worrying about where they left their lunch. It is human, clumsy, and totally lacking in the usual movie artifice. It reminded me a bit of the frantic, earnest energy in A Pigskin Hero, though they are obviously doing completely different things. They are just different flavors of people trying to be someone else for the camera.

Odd little observations:

• The way they navigate the gorge is less "jungle explorer" and more "careful uncle on a vacation."
• The shadows in the rocks look surprisingly dramatic by accident.
• The sound is mostly just wind and the occasional muffled laugh.
• I think there is a moment where a hat almost flies off and they just keep going.

There is no grand message here. It is not trying to be a meditation on nature or whatever. It’s just people who clearly liked each other enough to spend a day acting like monkeys in the dirt. Sometimes, that is enough.

It definitely makes you think about how movies used to be something you did rather than something you just consumed. It’s a bit like watching a long-lost cousin's vacation reel, if your cousin was obsessed with Edgar Rice Burroughs. It doesn't have the narrative weight of Making of a King, but then again, it’s not trying to wear a crown. It’s just wearing a loincloth. 🐒