MOVIE INFORMATION

With 10 as a must-see, Jack gives this film a: Starring the voices of: Tony Goldwyn, Minnie Driver, Glenn Close and Rosie O'Donnell Director: Kevin Lima and Chris Buck Rated: G Length: 88 minutes

ROCHESTERCRITIQUE

Having seen this film, how would you rate it? 10 5 9 4 8 3 7 2 6 1

By Jack Garner
Democrat and Chronicle

(June 18, 1999) -- Hollywood's original swinger is back on the vines in his best film yet in Tarzan, the lush new animated version from Disney.

Edgar Rice Burroughs, who created the Ape Man for a pulp magazine in 1912, suggested in the mid-'30s that animation might be the best way to recreate his tree-top jungle adventurer on film.

More than 60 years later, you only need to glimpse Disney's new Tarzan -- swooping, sliding, leaping and gliding through the jungle -- to know he was right.

No human, even one as athletic as the late Johnny Weissmuller, could be expected to recreate the animal skills and devil-may-care attitude of Burroughs' imaginative jungle dweller.

But Tarzan's expressive movement through the trees is only part of the success of the new Tarzan.

Add the film's rich animation, with layer upon layer of dense jungle; lively, well-developed characters; skilled voice talent; a driving, compact story; and Phil Collins' robust songs.

The basic story remains familiar: Tarzan is a human infant, left behind in the jungle after his parents are killed. Raised in a gorilla family, he's content with primitive life until he encounters his first humans -- a group of explorers.

He's particularly drawn to the lovely Jane (voiced by a spunky Minnie Driver), and she to him.

He must then decide whether to accompany his fellow humans back to civilization or stay in the jungle with the family he knows.

In most earlier film versions, Tarzan goes back to civilization (and typically finds an even more threatening concrete jungle). In this economically told tale, though, the issues of dual identity and family are resolved in Africa.

The fable-like quality of animation also allows the animals to speak -- which strengthens the story of the bond that grows between Tarzan and his gorilla mother (voiced by Glenn Close), with the austere gorilla patriarch (Lance Henriksen) and with his playmates, a young gorilla (Rosie O'Donnell) and a baby elephant (Wayne Knight).

Appropriately, when the other humans arrive, the gorilla language once again becomes typical animal grunts and growls. It's a language only Tarzan understands.

The technique also allows Tarzan (Tony Goldwyn) to speak more articulately than any previous Ape Man.

The Disney storytellers also sidestep the racial stereotypes that plague some Tarzans by placing the gorilla family far from humanity. Natives aren't an issue -- there aren't any.

The filmmakers also downplay a subplot about an evil white hunter (Brian Blessed), using it only to create tension, but never allowing it to distract from the warmer issues of family ties and personal integrity.

But, fear not, Tarzan is no heavy-handed sermon on family values. Mostly, it offers bracing adventure and child-friendly humor, wrapped inside Disney's most artful animation since The Lion King.

Glen Keane deserves special plaudits as supervising animator. Part tree-top surfer and part walk-on-his-hands ape, his Tarzan moves through the film with a grace and vigor never before seen in a cartoon.

The Disney folks can proudly thump their chests on this one.