Tarzan

TARZAN (U)

D: Kevin Lima & Chris Buck

Disney (Bonnie Arnold)

US 🇺🇸 1999

88 mins

Animated

W: Tab Murphy, Bob Tzudiker & Noni White [based on the novel “Tarzan of the Apes” by Edgar Rice Burroughs]

Mus: Mark Mancina; Phil Collins

voices of: Tony Goldwyn (Tarzan), Minnie Driver (Jane Porter), Glenn Close (Kala), Rosie O’Donnell (Terk), Brian Blessed (William Cecil Clayton), Nigel Hawthorne (Prof. Archimedes Q. Porter)

Edgar Rice Burrough’s Tarzan of the Apes gets the Disney treatment for this 1999 animated feature, which does a decent job summarising the story to a brief 88 minute running time, though it probably goes a little overboard with the Phil Collins songs on the soundtrack.

The plot should be familiar to millions; a young boy and his parents survive a shipwreck, find landfall in equatorial Africa, though the boy is taken in and raised by apes once his parents die, only to find his allegiances torn when he meets a human expedition and its female member, Jane, as a man.

Entertaining for its brief duration, with high quality animation that you’d expect from Disney. The voice cast are all fine too, though it’s not really a film where dialogue shines through.  Phil Collins penned and recorded several songs for the soundtrack, and though “You’ll Be In My Heart” is a highlight, the majority of the rest feel vastly out of place.

6/10