My Movie Review
Directed by: Kevin Lima/ Chris Buck
Based on the story: "Tarzan of The Apes" by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Presented by Walt Disney Pictures/1999/U.S.A/ 88 min.
Voice Talent: Tony Goldwyn (Tarzan), Minnie Driver (Jane Porter), Glenn Close (Kala), Rosie O'Donnell (Terk), Brian Blessed (Clayton), Nigel Hawthorne (Professor Porter), Lance Henricksen (Kerchark), Wayne Night (Tantor), Alex D. Linz (Young Tarzan)
Released on June 18, from coast to coast in the U.S, getting all attention from mass media, bringing Disney in 3,422,000 dollars only three days from June.18, the latest Disney movie, "TARZAN" attained the new records in Disney movie history and made a deep impression on people. In Japan it was released on December 18. Hearing this favorable reputation, I went to the theater and watched it two times. Today I want to recommend to you to check it out. Here are three my favorite points of this movie. First is that this original story is very famous and Disney remade it true to the author's images. Second is that Disney improved the new system of computer graphics and their animation which we have never seen before. Last, the Disney animation staff changed the way of showing the story; they didn't allow their characters to sing songs in the movie. Seeing this movie, I assure you it will make your image of Disney movies change.
This story starts with "two tragedies". There is a British noble family, a couple with a baby in arms. They drifted ashore to the African jungle because of a shipwreck. They built a house on a tree and lived a while, but soon they're attacked by Sabor, a ferocious leopard, and only the parents are killed. The other tragedy is that a female gorilla, Kala also had her child killed by Sabor. In deep sorrow, she found the baby, left all alone high a top of the tree house. She named the baby Tarzan and decided to raise him as her son. Her husband and the leader of her group, Kerchack, allowed her to raise him after all, but he didn't regard Tarzan as one of his group and his son, for the reason that Tarzan was completely different from the other gorillas, a human. Nonetheless he grew up over the years. Kerchack still tries to keep Tarzan away from him, but with Kala's love and his best friends Terk, a playful young gorilla and Tanto, a easily frightened elephant, who seem not to care about his differences, he turns into a strong and wise young man. However one day he meets a young girl, traveling with her father, Professor Porter. Her name is Jane. They hope to see gorillas for the first time in the wild. After he saves her life from monkeys' stampede, he's strongly interested in her, who looks exactly like him. Jane realizes that he's a human who just happens to have been raised as an ape by wild gorillas. She teaches him their way of speaking and language and shows their cultures. Soon they are attracted to each other and Tarzan wants to introduce the humans to his ape families. However Kerchack forbids it, citing the need to protect the gorillas. From that point on, and with Clayton, the bodyguard, the great white hunter, secretly wishing to capture several apes for a large bounty, Tarzan must decide whether to remain with his "ape family" or return with the Jane and the others and live his life as "a human".
When we hear the name, Tarzan, we tend to imagine what he looks like, such as wild, savage, howling in a peculiar way, the king of the gungle, etc. However the way the author, Edgar Rice Burroughs wanted to describe Tarzan is by far different from those things; Tarzan has extraordinary reflexes, brains, delicate feelings and dignity, because he is descended from English. Only Disney filmmakers can show real Tarzan, as Burroughs wanted to by the animation not the photograph film such as was made before by other directors.
Utilizing an animation process they've named " Deep Canvas", the Disney animators have also created the best and most "realistic" looking background for any of their features. With the ability to move the camera in and around the background, they create a fun and lively experience within an incredible looking picture. Therefore they could make Tarzan glide down the branches and trunks of the tree as a snowboarder. They make us much more excited than some computer-graphics movies with this realty. You would not notice the differences between the computer-graphics and the arts. They fused them into new types of art successively. We get excited as if we are running through and sliding down the jungle at full speed with Tarzan.
Some always wonder why the Disney movie characters sing suddenly and don't like this musical style. I like this Disney's traditional and effective way of focusing what they want to tell most and strongly in one movie. However, to be honest I also wonder and feel so unnaturally in some stories and some scenes. In this movie you don't worry about that; the Disney filmmakers didn't use this style at all. Instead of that, one of the famous drummer and singers in the world, Phil Collins, sings impressive songs in some important scenes as narration and inside the characters. All his songs play an important role as narration and the heart of the story. His voice is just unique, but it fits so naturally that it prompts us to get the movie; it didn't get in the way of the picture and our imaginations. It's the new style of the Disney motion picture and adds more possibilities in making films in the next generation.
From the points above, I highly recommend this thrilling, exciting and delicate movie. This background is far from our routine, but the heart of the movie is very near us. Disney filmmakers have just tried to find the theme in our daily life and deepen it to make the audience have empathy. "What is the definition of the family?" Indeed Tarzan is an adopted child; he was adopted by the gorillas' family and grew up, believing that he was also one of the gorillas even though his appearance is so different. Then he met Jane and the other humans and fell into a dilemma of what the true family, to which he should belong is; the gorillas, having loved and raised him or the human, the same species as him. Finally filmmakers got the contemporary topic, "The bonds of the family and searching for oneself". You can laugh, shed tears get angry and be excited by them. Consequently this is the long -lasted story over the times and has impressed many audiences.
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