Reviewing - The Tarzan Collection
The final film of the Disney Renaissance is a powerhouse of animation, bringing us deep into the African jungle and into the world of a wild jungle man who speaks ape and can replicate the sound of a gunshot with his voice. If that's not cool enough, he can surf on trees. While some of his follow-up adventures are bad to the point of being positively painful, Disney built on the franchise overtime with a number of quality stories and more great animation.
Tarzan (****)
In which a young woman and her father discover a feral man in the jungle and decide it's him and not them who've got this life thing figured out
Tarzan is one of the most visually ambitious pictures in the Disney Renaissance.
Within seconds of this movie starting, I noticed what a step up the animation had taken from Mulan. It’s not surprising given that the budget was increased by some 40 million dollars. Shading is back with a vengeance – I’m pretty sure every single shot in the film incorporated this technique. Beyond making all of the characters pop off of the screen, the use of shadows in the film was very cool. There were more than a few moments where characters were underneath the shadow of tree leaves, and pockets of light poked through on them. I loved that. But more than anything, the coolest part of the animation here was the tree-surfing. The camerawork (if you can call it that) is some of Disney’s most ambitious yet, weaving and whirling through the jungle as it follows Tarzan’s insane acrobatics. The “Son of Man” sequence has a particularly jaw-dropping shot that follows Tarzan on what can be likened to the famous ‘final swing’ that always ends a Spider-Man film. This movie is an absolute joy to watch.
I’ve heard a variety of perspectives on the music of this movie. Some love Phil Collins and the soundtrack he provided, while others think his contributions make the movie cheesy beyond belief. Personally, I think the direction they chose to take with the music was a novel decision, and successful in some ways while not so much on others. The advantage of having all the music be non-diegetic or outside of the world of the film (except for “Trashin’ The Camp”, of course) is that our characters get to stay somewhat grounded in reality. Sure, this is a movie about a guy who talks to apes, but the fact that Tarzan never bursts into song helps keep him kind of an enigma, just like he was in the book. We don’t get a look deep inside his mind, like we usually do when Disney characters sing out their heart’s desire in song. His motivations are still clear, but he’s more of a serious protagonist because he doesn’t sing. The other advantage is that Collins gets to serve as kind of an external narrator. He highlights themes of the film without the characters themselves having to say them out loud. Kerchak’s refusal to accept Tarzan, for instance, remains somber because we never get characters singing at him to change his mind. The dramatic tension remains. Now, sure, who’s to say that they couldn’t have pulled this off with singing characters after all, but I guess I’m just trying to say that I think the execution was more than competent. At the same time, Tarzan is the only film of the Renaissance that doesn’t have a track on any Disney playlist of mine. I think that’s because the soundtrack sounds like a 90s album and not like a movie soundtrack – for better or worse.
The story is fairly predictable, but it’s told well so you don’t mind. The character designs are really thrilling, from Sabor to Clayton to Professor Archimedes. They’re all fun to look at, because their design accentuates every fibre of their personality. Archimedes looks quirky and eccentric, just as Clayton looks intimidating and cunning. This is one of those films that you’d be able to follow perfectly even if the sound was turned off.
This movie may not share the cultural relevance or emotional significance of some of its predecessors, but it’s a thrill ride from start to finish. Only skip this if you can’t stand Phil Collins – there’s a lot of him in here.
The Legend of Tarzan: The Series (***)
This was actually pretty cool.
First and foremost, during this Disney watch-through, I’ve only been watching the first five episodes. Here, I watched six, because the fifth episode I watched was actually a two-parter. I didn’t even mind sticking around for that extra twenty minutes, because the plot of the episodes was pretty cool. The main thing that I loved is that even in the span of these first few episodes, a cast of recurring characters and a sort of linear narrative began to take shape. There was a tradesman who set up camp near the shore in one episode who came to be important later on. Two guys who ran away from the French military in one episode popped up a few episodes down the road. Even cooler was the way one episode ended where Tarzan basically said “More white men are going to come here – that’s not a good thing”, and then that exact thing ended up happening later. Most of the shows I’ve watched don’t really have any continuity, so that was a refreshing change.
The other nice thing was that the show stuck true to the world of the movie. If you remember “Timon and Pumbaa” or “101 Dalmatian Street”, much was changed from the films they were based on in order to make the shows possible. Here, the only major change that I noticed was that the animals could speak fluently with Jane and her father. I suppose this was a change of convenience, allowing the main characters to interact more easily without needing to have someone serve as a translator at any given moment. Other than that, this show felt like it kept the spirit of the original film intact.
And that theme song sequence! I loved it every time. Well done, Disney!
Tarzan and Jane (1/2)
In which an ape and an elephant depress a young woman through flashbacks
Someone at Disney Animation needs to be slapped with a fish so they understand what Tarzan would feel if he ever watched this movie.
I’ve seen direct-to-video Disney films with poor storylines before. I’ve seen direct-to-video Disney films with poor animation before. But to see a film with this poor of a storyline – with animation this poor – there’s just something so offensively bad about the whole thing. Honestly, there were times that I wondered if it was even Disney who animated this and not a knockoff foreign company trying to make a buck by pirating the franchise. Jane in particular looks at points like she got hit in the face with a large blunt object. And yeah, the animation is bad, but they also returned to the package-film format that I remember with horror from “Belle’s Magical World” or “Cinderella II”. Yeah, Hunchback II had crummy animation, but at least they had the confidence to stick to one story for an hour. Here, we get three scrapped episodes of the Tarzan TV show smushed haphazardly into a frame narrative about Tarzan and Jane’s one-year anniversary. Not only was it a weak plot device, it didn’t even hold up. Terk and Tantor (the culprits responsible for forcing Jane to have these flashbacks) turned out to be deliberately manipulating Jane into feeling glum about her husband so that he could surprise her. Why make her depressed just to make her happy again? You could have just said “Oh, don’t expect much this evening. Tarzan’s been really busy” instead of making her feel like she was a fool for wanting anything special.
Oh my GOODNESS this film is so bad it’s maddening. Watch this if you want Jane to visit you in your nightmares.
Tarzan II (***)
In which the third movie in a franchise gets the suffix “II” despite its narrative occurring chronologically first
It may be just a kid’s movie, but it’s well executed and doesn’t trip over itself – which is more than many films in this category can say.
Thankfully, the quality of the animation in this film is significantly better than what we saw in “Tarzan and Jane”. It’s closer to the levels of competency we’ve seen in some of Disney’s better direct-to-video films, like Little Mermaid III or Lion King 1 ½. Everyone looks and sounds like themselves, which is terrific. Most importantly, young Tarzan is a compellingly animated character. They really put a lot of emotion into his expressions, and some of the stunts he does are pretty sweet. The story is fairly safe and kid-friendly, but it’s not boring. Fans of Toy Story will appreciate the return of voice actor Estelle Harris (Mrs. Potato Head) as the chief antagonist of the film. Even though she’s not a particularly funny character, her voice brings a lot of comedy to the role anyway.
I’ll keep it brief. There’s nothing in here that would make me urge you to go out and watch Tarzan II, but there’s also nothing particularly bad about it. If your kids liked Tarzan, they’ll like this. And you’ll kill an hour of time without hating yourself, so that’s pretty good.
Oh, one more thing. Why isn’t this called Tarzan III? We already had Tarzan and Jane. Does calling this Tarzan II mean Tarzan and Jane has been retconned? Or are we meant to watch Tarzan and Jane third even though it was released second? Maybe they should have titled it Tarzan 1 ½ seeing as it’s not really a prequel or a sequel anyway. Get it together, Disney.