A pretty fun movie

Rating: 7/10 (4 September 2009)

Based on the famous series of novels written by Edgar Rice Burroughs (September 1, 1875 – March 19, 1950), Disney has come up with a pretty entertaining adaptation of the beloved literary character.
The first thing I must talk about is the animation. Disney has perfectly blended classic animation with computer animation. The computer animation enhances the classic animation with movement drawings couldn't do. In many scenes, "Tarzan" (child voiced by Alex D. Lintz; adult voiced by Tony Goldwyn) is sliding on large tree branches rapidly. In the classic animation style, they would not have been successful in "following" "Tarzan" through the trees as well as they could with computer animation due to the rapid movement.
There are very few dark colors in the scenery. In fact, the only dark colors were used for the gorillas, shadowing and human hair. Most of the colors are light gray, lots of green (it is in a jungle) and other brighter colors.
There are some pretty good performances in this film. However, none really stood out in my opinion. I was not that impressed with some supporting characters, as they had little screen time and thus had no time to develop. Rosie O'Donnell was a delight as "Terk," who was "Tarzan's" best gorilla friend.
If you ask me, they really missed the mark to make a memorable villain in this film. They had two chances, but killed one, and just did a horrible job making a human villain.
As for music, which Disney is known for, there isn't a lot performed on screen by characters like in previous movies. In fact, characters burst into two songs. The rest of the soundtrack is done mainly by Grammy and Academy Award-winning Phil Collins. The songs by Collins is easily a lot more memorable than the rest of the musical score. In fact, all I really can remember is Collins songs. However, the Collins songs, which he wrote and performed, is not as memorable as some of the classic songs Disney is known for. Therefore, if you hear the songs by Collins, you won't be catching yourself singing these tunes, nor will you think of the movie when you hear the songs. The songs did fit well into scenes though.
The movie is well paced, however I did think the story was really rushed due to the 89 minute length of the film. They really rushed the part where "Jane" (voiced by Minnie Driver) and the team she was with tried to bring "Tarzan" back to civilization with some of the animal characters as prizes. They also did a pretty good job with the famed relationship between "Jane" and Tarzan. If this movie was a little longer, they really could have worked on many scenes, character development and the relationships between the characters. After seeing this movie, I am almost certain they made the animated television series based on this movie to better explore the relationships in the movie.
If you ask me, this is almost a Disney classic. But, in my opinion, it barely misses the mark to be up there with "Snow White" and others touched by Disney's magic.