Tarzan (1999)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

1999 was a cinematic year marked by the seal of originality and self-questioning that fitted the upcoming New Millennium timing, it is also the year where animated movies like "Toy Story 2" and the "South Park" movie came out and they were so in-line within the modern mood of their era, that they might overshadow "Tarzan" despite not being as visually breathtaking.Indeed, for all its spectacular jungle canvas and spellbinding animation (the animators really outdid themselves), not to mention its heartfelt story not devoid of a few existential undertones, "Tarzan" might be too 'classic' for its own good. The film is often noticed for being the last of the Disney Renaissance era, and it is true that if we forget the sorry streak of straight to video sequels of the early 2000's, Disney had definitely surrendered to the CGI wave after that. But "Tarzan" was made a bit too late, when the pulse of animation was beating in 3D and when the torch of traditional animation had already passed to Hayao Miyazaki. "Chihiro's Travel" is light years ahead of "Tarzan".I liked Tarzan a lot despite my criticism, I loved the relationship he had with his environment and the character of Kala, his adoptive mother voiced by Glenn Close, who is certainly one of the most memorable mother figures of Disney canons. There must be something about Close's voice as she was also remarkable as Homer Simpson's mother. The character of Jane is also a nice twist on the usual love interest figure and Minnie Driver delivers a fine performance as a girl always in good mood, curious about everything and whose awkwardness with Tarzan is both touching and funny. I loved the lighthearted tone of the encounter between Tarzan and Jane, the way they both try to communicate (we get it that the English spoken with animals is just the usual artistic license and that it's meant to be a series of articulate grunts and adequate body language) and how a well-meaning Tarzan tries to fit between the two worlds. Voiced by Tony Goldwyn, Tarzan is certainly deeper than most Disney protagonists, torn between the love and friendship of some and the defiance of other, most notably, Kala's mate, voice by Lance Henrikssen, who refuses to recognize him as a son.We do root for Tarzan, he's certainly an engaging hero but just when ou try to except something really worthy of this character, the film just never feels like delivering something reasonably new and fresh, if we except the splendid special effects, but from the trailer, viewers already knew about the surfing across the trees sequences, perhaps one of Disney's greatest moments. The problem is that the relationships, as original as they are, fail to blow the mind of an audience who's seen "The Jungle Book", "Beauty and the Beast" or even "Pocahontas". The blame might also be on the weakness of the main villain (Brian Blessed) and the too distractingly old and goofy father (Nigel Hawthorne), I couldn't believe he would be Jane's father but Disney has a tendency to make little goofy midgets fathering beautiful and tall women, at least Tarzan looked like his real parents. Both the bad guy and the professor were rather dependable and maybe the story could have worked better without them, but I guess the purpose of the film was to culminate with a men vs. animal confrontation with Tarzan as the common denominator, but they could have found a more original climactic action sequence. The songs are touching and poignant like Phil Collins' songs but in a year where the "South Park" movie provided at least three Oscar-worthy songs, I won't forgive the Academy for having taken the easy choice. So I won't develop that chapter and will conclude by saying that "Tarzan" is certainly the last hurrah of Disney Renaissance and a great animated film in the sense that the animation is great and the story engaging but not to the point you'd want to watch it a second time.I'm a father and since today is Christmas, I just remembered I often bought Disney DVDs to my daughter and "Tarzan" is one of the rarest ones, there must be a reason, don't you think?

Plot; A young baby, orphaned after he and his parents are shipwrecked off the coast of Africa, is taken in and raised by apes. After reaching adulthood he finds himself caught between two worlds and must make a choice between his now foreign homeland and the only home he's ever known.Razor thin, Cliff notes version of the Tarzan story skates by (or is that swings?) on gorgeous visuals, a surprisingly strong and emotional bond between Tarzan and his adoptive ape mother and a charmingly quirky performance from Minnie Driver as Jane.As a courtesy I must warn you that approx. 79 of its 88 minute runtime contains music by Phil Collins. The type of which you typically hear in the candles section at Bed, Bath and Beyond.

Tarzan is a beautifully animated film (or at least the hand-drawn segments, but we will get to that later) and it has some of the fastest and most fluid movement from a Disney film in a very long time. The action and the pacing is very nice and the colors are all very vibrant, with very nice shading to boot. The human characters are also half of the fun of this movie. Just the way they move and how fast everyone interacts with each other is entertaining.However, Tarzan is not without some fairly major flaws.The biggest problem is the movie's plot. I know this is going off of some old material, but they aren't even following the original story very closely so it could've been improved. You can see where the movie is going almost a mile away and it has the same old cliché: "I'm a protective father who is super conservative and old fashioned and won't risk my people for your ways" kind of deal. This kind of thing has been done more frequently AFTER this film was released, but it wasn't an uncommon theme beforehand... I mean... Pocahontas. And of course you know Tarzan is going to do something that will make everyone mad at him, but then Tarzan will have to redeem himself and... you get the drift. Fortunately, this movie is so fast paced that it doesn't even get caught in those boring details and these clichés wizz by super fast. All in all, Tarzan's plot is very weak and the bad guy is... hilariously obvious and I'm even more surprised that Jane and her father didn't even notice how obsessed he was with gorillas... not even slightly suspicious. Overall, I like Clayton's design and his character, but he isn't a truly deep or interesting villain.Regardless of the villain, the other characters have a lot of issues. Almost every character in this movie is a one-dimensional or a two-dimensional character. You have some depth with Tarzan, and maybe a little bit with Jane, but because the movie thinks that montages are equivalent to character development, you never really get any on- screen development. You see the characters before and after the development, but rarely during. This hurts Jane's and Tarzan's relationship the most. In Aladdin it kind of worked because Jasmine already kind of liked Aladdin and recognized that it was probably him. They already had chemistry between each other and they sang a duet. However, when the Tarzan equivalent is a montage and the only romantic part is roughly 20 seconds long... you have almost no chemistry.All of the human characters seemed to have been cast fairly well (not sure about Tarzan, but he sounds fine) but a lot of the animal characters sound... not like their animated characters. Tarzan's "father" has a voice that sounds a little too high and clear for someone who is supposed to be a massive, giant, powerful gorilla. Terk's gender is almost impossible to tell until you watch the movie long enough. Almost everyone I know who has seen this movie thought Terk was a boy. And there are a couple of other examples of voices that don't seem to fit their characters.The hand-drawn animation in this movie is fantastic. There is no arguing it is some of Disney's best as far as individual characters go. However, almost everything outside of the characters is CGI or painted background... on a CGI plane. This sounds like a minor complaint, but it becomes rather annoying when you start to feel like you are watching a CGI film with hand-drawn characters instead of a hand-drawn film with CGI elements. Now, regarding the soundtrack... this is probably the most infamous aspect of this movie... the Phil Collins soundtrack. Don't get me wrong, there are MOMENTS in the songs that work perfectly with the visual imagery. There are times where the music lines up with the atmosphere but... it sounds so ridiculous and over the top that it makes it hard to take the movie seriously. This is much like the voice-casting of the movie: In some areas it works, in other areas it makes absolutely no sense.That actually sums up the movie pretty well: A movie that knows what it is doing in some areas, and has absolutely no idea in other areas. Certain scenes/songs come completely out of nowhere and are merely filler, almost all character development happens over montages, the animation is split between CGI and hand-drawn, half of the characters are voiced nicely while the other half aren't, and sometimes the movie is nicely paced while other times it is incredibly rushed. This is a movie that could've been much more entertaining than it was and much more interesting, but it falls into so many clichés and generic story-telling elements that it doesn't feel like a really special film.

A family is shipwrecked and stranded in the jungle. Sabor the leopard kills the parents and Kala the gorilla rescues the baby. Despite leader Kerchak's disapproval, Kala raises the baby naming him Tarzan. Brash gorilla Terk befriends him and they meet fearful elephant Tantor. When Sabor attacks, Tarzan saves Kerchak and the group with his spear. Professor Porter and his daughter Jane are studying the gorillas led by their hunter guide Clayton. Jane is chased by a pack of baboons and Tarzan rescues her. Tarzan becomes torn between the jungle and going with Jane to England.The animation is terrific and very energetic. Tarzan swinging in the trees is exciting. The traditional tale is a bit stale and I don't think the montage sequences are that compelling. The Phil Collins music may not be a great fit for a Disney kids movie. Nevertheless this is a good animated movie for the whole family. It has enough excitement and maintains the interest of the audience.