Tarzan

Directed by Chris Buck and Kevin Lima
With the voices of Tony Goldwyn, Rosie O'Donnell, Minnie Driver, Glenn Close, Nigel Hawthorne, Lance Henriksen, Wayne Knught, Brian Blessed
USA, 1999
Rated G

C

DEAR DISNEY, GET WELL SOON.
There is something so magical about animation- it’s taking art and shaping it into a story. Disney has captured the glory and significance of this movie art form through the years and Tarzan’s animation is mesmerizing. I wish I could say the same for the movie itself. I liked it a bit, but it doesn’t hold up in the company of The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, or The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Perhaps I find the latest Disney offerings (Pocahontas, Mulan, Tarzan) somewhat disenchanted because I am growing up. However, I still continue to watch old Disney classics and the earlier ‘90s films and am always thrilled by them. Tarzan is good fun, though, and it even has a little something to say - that we can all live in harmony and peace together on this earth, beast and man.

Set in Africa, the film begins with scenes of Tarzan’s parents being shipwrecked and building a treehouse for themselves in the African jungle where they are stranded. When Tarzan’s two parents are killed by a viscous leopard, ape Kala (Glenn Close), who has also lost her baby to the leopard, adopts him as her own. Her mate Kerchak (Lance Henriksen) disapproves. He is a melancholic ape who will, for most of the rest of his life, taunt and be cold towards Tarzan. There is a part of Kala who thinks Tarzan can replace her dead baby.

As Tarzan grows up, he makes friends with Turk, another ape (Rosie O’Donnell), and Tantor, an elephant (Wayne Knight). When a group of explorers visits the jungle, Tarzan is curious because they look exactly like he does. He is suddenly angry at his ape mother for hiding this from him, the fact that there are creatures who look like him, and soon discovers the truth of his adoption. He befriends these humans, among them a bubbly Minnie Driver character, a courageous, spunky girl named Jane Porter. She, her father (Nigel Hawthorne), and Clayton (Brian Blessed), a man who is with them to protect them but seems to always go against their wishes, are in the wilds to study gorillas. Mr. Porter has a theory that gorillas are social animals and are gentle. Clayton, the core villain of the film, thinks differently and is out to capture them. When Jane is attacked by a group of monkeys, Tarzan comes to her rescue, and then, they fall in love. Tarzan must then decide whether he wants to stay in the world he has known all his life or go back to where he "belongs."

One of the movie’s greatest flaws is the lack of a memorable villain. The Gaston-like brute Clayton, is stupid and not frightening at all. He's a forgettable fuddy-duddy. Because of this, Tarzan just isn’t as fun as it could’ve been. I enjoyed Phil Collins’ songs laden with percussion beats. There is a nice bounce to the beginning of the single version of the Rob Cavallo co-produced "You’ll Be In My Heart." It's a nice sonic production of a pop song that's screaming for an Academy Award and has lyrics to make you nauseous. Though none of the songs are as memorable as Disney’s earlier theme songs, Collins’ work fits the film perfectly. I enjoyed the voices, too. I bet Rosie O’Donnell had a lot of fun creating Terk’s voice. She kind of exaggerates too much and her performance doesn’t seem as natural as Minnie Driver’s performance, but she’s fun. Driver is enthusiastic and her magnetic self as Jane, and Nigel Hawthorne is funny as Jane’s lively father.

Over the years, I have set high expectations for Disney movies. They used to have grandeur and heart, and while Tarzan has both, it is all to a lesser degree. Tarzan has a vibrant energy in its scenes in which Tarzan is fighting with animals like leopards and wild monkeys, but as a whole, the movie is disappointing; fun, but underwhelming.

By Andrew Chan

Links to other sites on the Web

Tarzan site at The Internet Movie Database

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