ANI-MOVIES, *Tarzan

Disney finally got around to tackling the interconnected worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs with its Hollywood blockbusting title character, Tarzan. Seeing as how there's probably more films about the Lord of the Jungle than there are of Dracula and Santa Claus combined, Disney wasn't exactly taking on a property that was unkown to movie fans, like The Rescuers. Directed by A Goofy Movie's Kevin Lima and Frozen II's Chris Buck, it was Disney's priciest film to date, and seriously blended traditional 2D animation with CGI graphics more than any prior production. There was also a major collaboration with Phil Collins as he handled the soundtrack, but turned out better than Sting's final outcome with The Emporer's New Groove, although its pretty obvious that Collins is trying to measure up to former bandmate Peter Gabriel with his experimental approach to music. The movie was successful enough to produce two sequals, one of which was really the pilot for a TV series, an approach that Disney failed in other attempts like Cinderella II, plus a "midqual" in the style of Bambi II.

Starting out in the mid 19th Century, a young couple shipwreck off the coast of a secluded part of Africa along with their newborn son. For some reason, instead of simply puting repairng their boat, the instead build a fully-furnished treehouse, supposedly with cargo from their sunken ship. This wasn't exactly the best idea as both parents get eaten alive by ravenous leopards, leaving their young son to get adopted by a troop of gorillas, under the care of their leader's wife, Kala. Named "Tarzan", the animalistic human learns the ways of the jungle, and can communicate with most of the animals, some of which happen to know what piranhas are which don't even exist in Africa but have no idea what human beings are. A now grown up Tarzan befriends explorer Prof. Porter, and his daughter Jane who are looking for the local gorilla band. Their guide, the dubious Clayton, was in fact planning on capturing the gorillas to sell to upper class British twits. Jane teaches Tarzan about human customs and how to speak English, but their relationship is jeapordized by Clayton's scheme, and Tarzan has to choose between the world he grew up in or the one his parents came from.

Tarzan is up to the date it was released in 1999 as probably Disney's highest quality production to date. The animation is very fluid, especially the jungle chase scenes where Tarzan is sliding on trees, something that would later be redone for the sky surfing in Treasure Planet. Some of Phil Collins' musical choices seem a little shoved down your neck and could be more subtle. The casting is okay, especially Brian Blessed doing an awesome job as Clayton, although I don't understand why a gorilla indigenous to Africa would have a New York accent. The movie is ultimately mostly faithful to the original source material, although more of the Tarzan saga would be covered in the Legend Of Tarzan TV series.