An immortal legend. As you've only imagined.
Wild with exotic adventure and laugh-out-loud funny animal characters, Disney's Tarzan is a magnificent adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' classic story of the ape man!
Deep within the African jungle, a mother gorilla (Glenn Close as Kala) names an orphaned baby boy Tarzan (Alex D Linz as young Tarzan) and adopts him as her own, even though the silver-back leader Kerchak (Lance Henriksen) shuns the "hairless wonder". Growing up alongside his wisecracking ape buddy Terk (Rosie O'Donnell) and neurotic elephant pal Tantor (Wayne Knight), Tarzan develops all the instincts and prowess of a jungle animal, "surfing" and swinging through the trees at lighting speed. But with the sudden appearance of Tarzan's own kind - humans - including the beautiful Jane, the only world Tarzan has ever known and the one in which he belongs collide with extraordinary force!
Driven by five powerful songs written and performed by pop superstar Phil Collins, and starring the voice talents of Tony Goldwyn as Tarzan, Minnie Driver as Jane, Brian Blessed as Clayton and Nigel Hawthorne as Professor Porter, Disney's Tarzan delivers incredible adventure as well as important reminders about acceptance and family!
Special Agent Matti
Tarzan is fun and laffs with more original Phil Collins songs. Is it just me or do they all sound the same?
The animation is par for the course at the end of the 20th century. There's nothing particularly striking but there're no big boo-boos, either. Some effort has gone into the accurate portrayal of gorilla life, shapes and movement, which is nice to see, but it's off-set by the addition of a hypochondriac elephant. Hello? Not that anyone will mind, unless you're a nitpicker like me, it's just one of those odd things that sometimes crop up in movies.
Tony Goldwyn and Minnie Driver make a great vocal duo, although I am still trying to figure out why English people speak with English accents while gorillas speak with American ones. Tony's impersonations of the other characters are really funny, too.
The script is pretty good for a story that's been done a zillion times already, bringing in innovative yet appropriate themes (like environmentalism) and having a heap of fun doing it. The bad guy can be spotted right away although he's still subtle enough that you can believe the goodies don't realise it. As for theme songs, well, George of the jungle is catchier.
Tarzan isn't the world's greatest animated film, but it'll certainly keep you entertained for an hour and a half, and the nippers will wear it out before they get bored with it.
PG
85 minutes (1:25 hours)
DVD rental: 20 February 2002
VHS rental: 20 February 2002
DVD retail: 29 June 2005 - Special edition
DVD retail: 8 November 2006 - Double pack
