Tarzan

Looking on the interweb, it turns out that Tarzan is considered the last film in the line of the Disney Renaissance. This is the line up of films that came out in the 90s, prime time for me to watch them as I great up in that decade and I definitely remember Tarzan.

Was it my favorite? Absolutely not. But what do I think of it now?

Tarzan begins to the singing of Phil Collins (we'll get to that) in the background of a little bit of a tragic start for both a family of gorillas and a family of humans. A baby Tarzan and human parents are in a shipwreck and are forced to create a new life on a tropical island. Somewhere in the same jungle, a family of gorillas is bringing in a baby of their own.

Unfortunately, both this new gorilla baby and the human parents are murdered by a leopard. Fortunately though, the mother gorilla (voiced by Glenn Close) finds the human baby and decides to raise it as her own. The alpha gorilla sees young Tarzan as different and has an incredibly difficult time accepting him as one of the gorilla family.

As Tarzan grows up, he finds it very difficult to get that acceptance by the rest of the gorillas. However, he decides to persevere through being different and be the best gorilla ever.

Along the way he's helped by his cousin Terk (voiced by Rosie O'Donnell) and an elephant named Tantor (voiced by Wayne Knight).

There's a training montage where Tarzan trains to be the best gorilla he can be an eventually proves himself when he becomes an adult (voiced by Tony Goldwyn).

The first act of this movie is actually really good. Its that idea of gaining the father's approval and the question of Tarzan being a man or a gorilla. I thought it was really good.

That's not to say that the rest of the movie isn't good, its just different and in some ways, the movie loses a little bit of focus.

Just as Tarzan is about to gain the respect of the family, a new creature arrives in the jungle. It is a group of humans exploring, looking for gorillas to study. This expedition is being done by Jane Porter (voiced by Minnie Driver) and her father (voiced by Nigel Hawthorne).

After Tarzan saves her, he hangs out with them as they try to teach him about being a man and teaching him to speak english so they can communicate with him so he can bring them to the gorillas for them to study.

Now when I say the movie loses focus a little bit is in the idea that instead of this movie having Tarzan wanting to be more like an ape, suddenly he wants to be more like a human. And that's fine, that part actually works really well. The problem with it is that suddenly the father issues that he has kind of go out the window. Yeah Kerchak, the alpha gorilla (voiced by Lance Henriksen) is still an element of the story but he becomes more of an obstacle rather than someone Tarzan is trying to impress like he is at the beginning of the film.

The other problem with film is the villain. Clayton, the sort of guide of the expedition to find the gorillas (voiced by Brian Blessed) is not exactly the most memorable villain. I by no means think that he is bad. He's just not incredibly great. He's fueled by greed. Its pretty obvious from the beginning that Clayton is going to be the bad guy so there's not much of a feeling of betrayal, even though Tarzan is really caught off guard.

However, where this movie does lose focus in some elements of it, I can say that it does have some really great dilemmas for the main character.

Like I said before, there is a bit of an element of Tarzan being torn between two worlds. And that does go over pretty well. The seeking of approval from Kerchak is done decently well, at least in the beginning.

On top of that the relationship between Tarzan and Jane is actually done really well. I don't think Jane will go down as one of the best female leads in a Disney movie as she needs to be saved a lot. She does teach Tarzan but in the end she needs saving and she does kind of go all weak in the knees just at a look at Tarzan. But hey it was the 90s, all damsels were like that. She's a decent enough character, just not exactly a strong female character.

I never realized how good of a character Tarzan is. I'm not saying he's the best out of any Disney animated flick I've ever seen but he is this great combination of a good character but also can seem very simple when he's learning how to be a human.

Rosie O'Donnell as Terk is decent enough. She's the comic relief and I actually think she did a decent job. The other characters like Wayne Knight as the elephant are good but not incredibly memorable.

And that's kind of the overall feeling I get from this film. Its a good Disney film, but I don't know if its the most memorable.

The animation is very good. The story is pretty good. The characters are good. But its kind of like Lilo and Stitch where its a good property from Disney to go back to and be nostalgic about, but its not your go to. Tarzan came at the end of the Disney Renaissance but I don't think its what the period will be remembered by.

Oddly enough, the thing I remember most from this movie whenever I think about it is the music.

I really like what Phil Collins did with this film. Weirdly enough, my parents bought the soundtrack to this film and we spent a lot of time listening to it. Yeah, you could say that its vague enough so it can apply to the film but at the same time could be played on the radio and that's not exactly good movie music, but I think that its actually really good music set in well with what's happening in the story. I actually saw a review on this film that said, I was half expecting Phil Collins to start singing and all the animals would look up and say, "what the fuck was that?". Yeah sometimes it does feel a little bit out of place but I don't think its enough to say that Collins did a bad job. I'd actually be really interested to see how this translated into a musical because there was a run of this show on Broadway.

Overall, is Tarzan great? No. Its good. Its the kind of movie that I will enjoy every time I watch it, but most likely will not remember a couple days later. That might not be the best review but I definitely think there are some good parts of this film... and some not so great parts. But its well done and while its not totally memorable, I think it was a good way to end the Disney Renaissance.

But what do you think of Tarzan? Where does it fall in your favorite Disney films? Comment and Discuss below! Also follow me on Twitter @cmhaugen24 to get updates on movie news and reviews. You can also shoot me a message or give me a request for movies to look at in the future.

I'll leave you with this. This was the radio mix for Strangers like Me. I really liked it and enjoyed it as a kid. Does it hold up? I don't know but I thought it would be a good video to put at the end of this. Enjoy!