"
you 'll go ape over tarzan because it 's more fun than a barrel of monkeys !
"
okay , there 's the quote in case disney wants to put something in their ads for the movie .
disney 's latest animated feature throws us right into the action from the very beginning , skipping the usual main title sequence and putting us on pitching waves as a small family attempts to escape from a sinking ship .
father , mother , and infant somehow make it to shore amidst a rousing song by phil collins , and have soon built a treehouse which would impress the swiss family robinson .
it 's amazing , the kinds of things you can do when you work to a soundtrack .
before you know it , an unfortunate set of circumstances put the baby in the hands of kala ( glenn close ) , a mother ape who recently lost her own baby to a predatory leopard . against the wishes of her mate and family leader , kerchak ( lance henricksen ) , she takes on the infant boy as her own .
tarzan is not so much a story about a human boy surviving in the african jungles as it is about one who does not really fit in either humanity or the wild .
much of tarzan 's young life is spent trying to become one of the apes in the eyes of his peers and his " father , " which occasionally gets him into trouble no matter how well - meant his attempts .
all he 's looking for is acceptance , perhaps a goal easily identifiable by young viewers , but one which will ring true with a lot of adults .
when you really think about it , this story fits right into the disney formula of the outcast that triumphs in the end .
look back on past disney animated features and you 'll see the trend .
growing up , tarzan ( voiced by alex d .
linz as a child , and by tony goldwyn as an adult ) has a couple of friends .
one is an ape named terk ( rosie o'donnell ) , and the other is a paranoid hypochondriac of an elephant named tantor ( wayne knight ) .
both provide the requisite comic relief ( timon and poombah from the lion king immediately come to mind ) and perform the usual hijinks as prescribed by the disney mold .
i 'm beginning to think anyone can write the screenplay for one of these films .
just fill in the blanks !
can you see it ?
" now we have to have a couple of zany friends for out hero who might get him into mischief , but cover for him or come to his rescue when he needs it .
we 've already had a fish and a crab , and we 've had a candle and a teapot , a genie and a dog , a few stone statues . . . .
have we had an ape and an elephant yet ?
well , there we go !
"
of course , there 's got ta be romance somewhere along the line , so jane ( minnie driver ) gets introduced about halfway through . together with her father
dr .
porter ( nigel hawthorne ) and the big game hunter clayton ( brian blessed )
, jane is on an expedition to find and study the wild gorillas of africa .
she discovers the man raised by apes and is enchanted almost immediately , and soon shares an amusing version of the compulsory " you tarzan , me jane " scene .
thankfully , those are n't the exact words .
however , i found it distracting that tarzan is going " ohh ohh ee ee " one second and then tells jane his name in this manly voice with perfect diction .
how does he tell his name to another ape ?
" ohh ohh ee - tarzan - ee ee ohh ?
"
well , regardless of my picky nature , the romance actually works as only disney romance can : purely contrived , but for some reason rather believable .
but hey , tarzan 's a young adult .
do you think he dated a few of the female apes before meeting jane ?
is n't that illegal in most countries ?
oh , well .
i do n't think disney will be using my quote anymore .
tarzan departs from the usual disney feature in that this one is not a musical .
there 's lots of music to be sure , but not a single character song in the whole hour and a half of running time .
we instead get more of a phil collins concert , as no less than five of his original songs are used as interlude material .
this is n't really a bad thing , as
the songs are very high - energy and catchy
( i found myself singing one to myself for most of the following day ) ; it 's just different .
do yourself a favor and see this film in a theater with a good sound system , because the music will come through astonishingly well and really enhance the movie .
with each new feature , disney animation gets even better .
not necessarily by leaps and bounds , but since they put out a new film each year , a steady rate of improvement is apparent , and this definitely shows in tarzan .
there are a couple of scenes where the animation achieves a near 3-d effect , and a number of scenes which feature tarzan moving through the trees are absolutely dizzying .
the way he slides down tree limbs and trunks is very reminiscent of skateboarding and rollerblading maneuvers , and had me thinking this is n't just tarzan , it 's " extreme tarzan . " however , tarzan does not seem to have what i call its " chandelier scene , " which is the one scene to which the animators have chosen to devote an inordinate amount of effort , utilizing a computer - assisted process that makes the animation absolutely breathtaking .
lasting but a few seconds at most , it 's been the signature of nearly every disney animated feature since beauty and the beast , in which the castle ballroom chandelier was rendered in stunning detail . as usual ,
the voice talent is up to snuff , convincingly make you believe in the convictions of animated characters .
the one poor choice in casting , however , was rosie o'donnell .
going into the film , i did n't know she was even a part of it , but when terk started talking , i recognized her voice immediately .
her performance was fine , but through the rest of the film i kept thinking , " that 's no boy ape , that rosie o'donnell .
" distracting to say the least .
i 'll admit i 've never read the edgar rice burroughs story " tarzan of the apes , " so i could n't tell you how true this film stays to the book .
but unless you 're a purist , you should have few objections to this film .
with solid performances , action , adventure , a bit of romance , and great music and animation , tarzan should appeal to the kids and to the kid in all of us .
note : when i wrote my review of mulan a year ago , i went off on the promotional and merchandising tie - ins prevalent with the release of a disney animated feature .
this time , i 'll just say that i went to mcdonald 's yesterday to treat myself to a mcflurry , and tarzan was on the cup .
'nuff said .
Output: P