User Reviews

There are spoilers in this review. I love MacGyver episodes! This one is no exception. I have watched it many times and I will watch it many more. MacGyver is the brains and Trumbo is the passion, and combined they make "Leiningen". I just wish they would have mentioned that the screenplay was based on the story, "Leiningen vs. the Ants" by Carl Stephenson. Yes they made some changes, but even my students, when comparing the story to the episode, agreed that there were more major similarities than differences. It seems that they even used footage from the movie of the story, The Naked Jungle", that I still wish to see. The size of the ant column, how the ants use the leaves as rafts, petrol tanks, coco plantation in Brazil, the commissioner, flooding the plantation, are all pieces of both, to name a few. But you still have to love how they brought in MacGyver into the story to be the other half of Trumbo, and how MacGyver figures out how to solve many of the problems.

The opening gambit of this episode is everything "MacGyver" should be. Exciting, funny, sexy. MacGyver rescues an attractive female scientist from Basque terrorists while wearing nothing but a towel. Great fun for men and women. After that rip-roaring sequence, the episode settles for a rather dull story about killer ants eating up a jungle plantation. Sure, it's an exciting idea but it's stretched past its limit. This would have been a good 30-minute episode of "Land of the Lost".

Peter Jurasik plays MacGyver's entomologist friend. Jurasik's role in "Babylon 5" has gone down in history as one of the greatest all-time performances. But playing a poorly written character speaking even poorer dialogue, he comes across rather poorly. His death at the pincers of the ants is a welcome sight. MacGyver watches his old friend get massacred...but gets over his friend's gruesome death rather quickly in order to figure out how to kill the ants. He teams up with the plantation owner, well-played by David Ackroyd. MacGyver has a much easier chemistry with Ackroyd than he does with his "friend". Which is probably why Ackroyd was hired again to play a different character in a later episode.

This episode is also marred by obvious usage of 1950s stock footage complete with black spots and not-even-trying green screen. The plantation workers are all American Indian stereotypes (the young, noble one; the old wise one). But if they're gonna do that, why didn't they throw in a sexy squaw for MacGyver to crush on? Maybe he should have brought along the cute scientist from the opening. But what saves this episode is the last act. MacGyver's final plan is ingenious as usual and the execution of it was tense and exciting. Watch the first 15 minutes, then watch the last 15 minutes.

MacGyver innovates and perceives his way out of trouble. He wants to investigate rumors of something killing everything, birds and animals alike. He goes into the jungle and meets Trumbo, who hates all outsiders. He tries to bargain ad Trumbo says no. He hears a Generators/pump that's dying and offer to try and fix it if they can stay, still no. He offers to do it for free. That works. He does not hate this abrasive man, he tries to win him over and understand him. Trumbo has made a home in the most hostile jungle in the world. Lots of people like MacGyver when he battles his foes with invented gadgets, but THIS is his real talent. The best way to win a war, is never to start it in the first place. He wins this difficult but capable man over. Then he really wins him over. He stays when nearly everyone flees, to help him fight the threat. They win at great cost. The only downside is the death of the loyal employee, they should have done more to save him.

The emotional interaction, the acting between the two men was fantastic.

The story is how MacGyver wins over Trumbo. Not the action, nor the gadgets.

Here we have a truly frightening idea: humans being swarmed over by gigantic army of ants. Sadly the execution does not work. But before that threat is even introduced, the viewers are subjected to some stock footage and definitely-not-on-location footage edited together in an embarrassing way. Then there is the horrible blue-screen work of MacGyver and Dr. Alden (pre-B5 Peter Jurasik) on the river. After the poor start, it just gets worse after cliché after cliché is piled on top of each other. The workers have historical knowledge of the ants which makes them all, except - of course - one loyal one, flee before the swarm. Then the over-excited Doctor gets a little too close to the ants and does not realize he's going to die before it's too late because he's pretty conveniently chosen a place atop a downward slope and - of course - looses his foothold. Then the first plan does - of course - not work because the loyal one gets swarmed by the ants. In the end, MacGyver and Trumbo have to resort to the last straw that's been discussed over and over. The main problem in all of this is the complete lack of menace. The ants just aren't portrayed in a scary way. Mostly this is because of the dreadful music that sucks all tension away from the proceedings. And we never see an uninterrupted shot of the ants killing someone. Now that would have been terrifying! Yes, it may have been impossible to show that kind of death on TV, but then why make the damn episode in the first place? Oh, and a special mention of stupid piece of dialogue: we see a woman trapped under a canoe - an Trumbo actually says: "There's a woman trapped under that canoe!" No s**t, Sherlock!

This is a straight copy of The Naked Jungle movie (1954), even having some of the stock footage from it. It had even more stereotypes in it than the original, which did at least have an excuse for the time it was made. This show can sometimes be formulaic but this episode really lets them down. I am sure that they have more than enough good scriptwriters without lifting a movie plot in almost its entirety. I get the impression that they were over budget and filled the schedule with a cheap filler episode, common US TV network problem, unfortunately using the minimum of actors and crew shows up, as was done with an episode of Enterprise.