Tarzan (Disney) - Ray's Review

Tarzan (1999)
88 min

Directed by:
Chris Buck
Kevin Lima

Starring the voices of:
Tony Goldwyn .... Tarzan
Minnie Driver .... Jane Porter
Glenn Close .... Kala
Brian Blessed .... Clayton
Nigel Hawthorne .... Porter
Lance Henriksen .... Kerchak
Wayne Knight .... Tantor
Alex D. Linz .... Young Tarzan
Rosie O'Donnell .... Terk


Plot Summary from Amazon.com:

"...Disney's magnificent animated adaptation of Edgar Rice Burrough's story of the ape man begins deep within the jungle when baby Tarzan is adopted by a family of gorillas. Even though he is shunned as a "hairless wonder" by their leader, Tarzan is accepted by the gorillas and raised as one of their own. Together with his wisecracking ape buddy Terk and neurotic elephant pal Tantor, Tarzan learns how to "surf" and swing through the trees and survive in the animal kingdom. His "Two Worlds" collide with the arrival of humans, forcing Tarzan to choose between a "civilized" life with the beautiful Jane and the life he knows and loves with his gorilla family..."

Ray's Opinion:

I always feel divided about Disney films. On the one hand I love a good animated film and I admire the skill involved in their production. On the other hand I am an adult and usually there are many elements that my cynical self will struggle with in animated "kids" films, such as sappy songs, 'amusing' sidekicks and blatant moral lessons. Sometimes I have the capacity to just let things go and I really enjoy myself, other times I am cringing constantly and rolling my eyes. Tarzan had a mixed effect on me, but overall I kept my cynical self in check.

I've got to hand it to the folks behind the tight screenplay, this has got to be the most fast paced Tarzan ever devised. I've noticed some other reviewers felt it was rushed, but I just thought it was incredibly efficient. By the 25 minute mark Tarzan's human parents have been killed, he's been saved by his ape mum Kala, they've established all the animal characters - including the obligatory 'amusing' sidekicks - and Tarzan's gone from boy to man.

The highlight for me is the scene where Tarzan saves his ape father Kerchak and has a showdown with a leopard. It's an awesome scene and in comparison, the end fight is quite lame. I watched some deleted scenes and there was a early pre-viz type animation of an alternate fight scene between Tarzan and his nemesis Clayton. Clayton had captured several apes and is sailing down river in a small boat. Tarzan and him have a huge and brutal fight that ends with the ship exploding. It would have been a much more satisfying end fight and could have broken things up visually too. I guess it may have been deemed a little too brutal for children, or perhaps it was a running time issue (maybe I'll find out when I listen to the film's commentary track)?

Tarzan is a stunning looking production. The jungle comes to life with a system called 'Deep Canvas' that essentially enables you to move through what appears to be a painting, but is in fact a sophisticated blend of 3d elements and traditional 2d painting methods. It enables the virtual camera to go where it wants, creating a dynamic, fluid feeling - it is particularly stomach churning in the scenes where Tarzan 'surfs' through the tree tops; an improbable and bizarre method of getting around, but lots of fun to watch.

The songs are by Phil Collins and they play a huge part in Tarzan - he's crafted some catchy and rhythmic tunes here, but if you can't stand him, he may ruin the whole thing for you. There's heaps of his music and it is all in the sappy Disney style. I enjoyed most of it and actually caught myself humming the main tune "You'll be in my heart" long after Tarzan finished. I've got to hand it to Mr Collins, seeing him sing the songs in Italian, French, Spanish and German - for the international versions - was really impressive.

On the negative side I didn't jive to the 'amusing' sidekicks at all. Sometimes sidekicks are amusing and add something - such as Scrat the squirrel in Ice Age - but I found these ones obnoxious. Also I felt it was very strange having an elephant living with an ape family, Kerchak seemed to have enough of a problem with the 'hairless wonder' being with them, let alone a massive pink elephant. I most enjoyed the animals when they were actually acting animal-like, because sometimes they were just too human - such as the small monkey falling for Jane's "look bananas" distraction. I can appreciate that this is essentially made for children, but I think humanising the animals too much detracted from how spot-on most of the ape behaviour was (I don't have a problem with the ape's talking, because they identified that it sounded like ape-talk to the humans).

The voice work fits the characters well, particularly Tarzan (Tony Goldwyn - I best remember him as the obnoxious 'Colonel Bagley' from The Last Samurai). Minnie Driver (Matt Damon's girlfriend from Good Will Hunting) puts on the perfect snobby British accent (or does she?) that suits Jane, and Lance Henriksen's gravely voice is, of-course, perfect for the intimidating Kerchak.

The DVD image was excellent and I didn't spot any compression issues. The 5.1 sound (there was no DTS on this version) was deep and rich, and used the surrounds effectively. The instrumental soundtrack - with lots of cool 'jungle' type drumming - was powerful and really added to the excitement.

Tarzan is great entertainment for an hour and a half and is one of my favourite animated films overall. It's consistently exciting and has some incredible sequences like Tarzan's fight with the leopard and his jungle 'surfing'. Tarzan is an amazingly agile character that could only ever be fully realised in animation, which the animators did an excellent job of. Unfortunately - well maybe not for kids - it also has cringe inducing scenes like the scene where the 'amusing' sidekicks create a song out of everyday objects at the human's camp - The elephant plays the trumpet... Is that really necessary in the legend of Tarzan?

8/10