Tarzan 1999
I remember when this movie came out in 1999 and they showed Tarzan surfing down tree limbs, which seemed kind of silly and too overt an attempt to make an old story more “radical.” I grew up watching old black and white Tarzan movies, so this one was not a priority. But in going over some rankings of Disney movies 17 years later, Tarzan did surprisingly well. I was able to use points on Disney Movie Rewards to get the blu-ray disk for free which was still risky without seeing the movie first. Yes, it is an old story and the skateboarding down trees is still silly, and the Phil Collins songs are a little dated, but this is still a good movie. The animation, including those skateboarding scenes, is impressive. Tarzan is stylized almost as a comic book superhero since his clothes are mostly just his skin and muscle. There is great camera work too as computers come more into play.
The story is well done too, even though it is familiar. There is some heavy weight here at the beginning, like with so many animated movies, but with the primary conflict being between a hunter and gorillas, there is some significant danger throughout. Fortunately, the hunter primarily wants to capture the gorillas, which is much better than what really used to happen. Still, things get kind of violent, surprising me that it could still get a G rating: it might be too much for little kids. There are still some goofy side characters, but they feel a little out of place in a movie about this adopted ape boy. The romance with Jane is well done, but hopefully you like Phil Collins. Despite those obvious quibbles, the rest of the movie paid off pretty well and an animated movie turns out to be a lot better way of showing Tarzan talking with animals he grew up with than using men in monkey suits. Still maybe not the top tier of Disney movies, this one is still worth watching.Written: 17 Oct 2016
Owned on: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital