Nappies?

Rating: Null/10 (27 September 1999)

The gorillas in the Melbourne Zoo are especially impressive. They live in what appears to be an extensive and hopefully expansive area where perhaps they are fairly happy.
They're segregated not only from the humans visitors who rightly ogle at them but also to a large extent from each other. I gather that gorillas can be pretty aggressive towards each other in zoos. Homicide (gorillacide?) is a strong possibility in these confined spaces.
How they might behave in the wild (if these unfortunate creatures can find enough country to be wild in) is beyond this city slicker's knowledge, but I'd bet that if one found a baby in a tree house it would either leave it, throw it, break it or eat it.
And I'm absolutely certain that nappies (diapers) or loin cloths wouldn't be on Mrs Gorilla's shopping list.
But I'm being churlish I suppose. After all this is Walt Disneyland.
Edgar Rice Burroughs created the Tarzan character as a short story in 1912 and went on to write 24 novels starring the ape man. Burroughs wasn't interested in veracity, and wasn't the type, Gorillas In the Mist style, to muck in with the apes to get the inside story, backgrounding, indulging in adventurous investigative field trips to Africa to check out the locals and their relationship with the local Gorillas.
But he knew how to tell a good tale which later blossomed into the TV series starring Johnny Weissmuller howling through the upper branches with his good mate Jane. That Jane was a white lass was necessary if unlikely considering that Tarzan lived with apes in Africa. But then as now, it would be commercially unwise to mix races.
Come to think of it, The Phantom who also lived in darkest Africa, also took up with a foreign, fair skinned, female interloper.
This latest version of Tarzan is equally strange from an anthropologic point of view but what the heck. It's an impure world.
The science of animation continues to progress and amaze. Using a technique the Disney boffins call deep canvas (zappy eh!), they have the characters zipping around and about the jungle with great three dimensional abandon.
The plot is dynamic and reasonably coherent and the voicing by in particular Minnie Driver as Jane is attractive. Lance Henrickson as Kerchak the boss ape, Glenn Close as Mum, Rosie O'Donnell as Terk one of the ape sidekicks and Tony Goldwyn as Tarzan are competent.
Tarzan is entertaining for everyone. It isn't in The Lion King's class but don't send in the ankle biters on their own. Do the good adult thing and slip in to enjoy a film that is entertaining for children of all ages.