Tarzan (1999)

Having never read any of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan books doesn’t really matter, because most people have a general understanding about what the Ape Man is about. Often times people compare books and movies (I myself am guilty of this from time to time), which defeats the purpose of both mediums. Books and movies exist to tell stories through their own unique elements. We can try to infer what a book might be like based on a movie and we can imagine what we think a movie should be like while we read the book. You can only objectively compare books with other books and movies with other movies. With that in mind, Disney’s Tarzan calls to my mind Lady and the Tramp with sex appeal.

In the 1800s, a British couple and their baby son crash on the shores of the African jungle. After building a shelter, the parents are killed by a leopard but the boy is saved and adopted by a family of gorillas. As a young man, Tarzan saves the life of Jane, the daughter of a British explorer who has anchored offshore. With them is an aggressive game hunter named Clayton, who sets his sights on adding members of Tarzan’s gorilla family to his collection.

How do you make a pacifistic, anti-hunting story cool to your target demographic of rowdy young boys? By having Tarzan glide and slide through the jungle branches like he’s on rollerblades or a skateboard. Maybe I shouldn’t find fault with this but I can’t help myself. I don’t care how callused his feet are or how much moss covers the jungle bark; there’s no way this is remotely possible. Maybe it looks cool at first, but by the end of the movie, Tarzan does it more than enough times for the trick to get old. That’s quite an accomplishment for a movie clocking in at just under 90 minutes!

Tarzan himself is a pretty thin character, so the film really leans on its supporting cast to make the film something special. Jane looks like your typical damsel-in-distress (skinny waist accentuating her developed upper half) but she has brains, wit, and some toughness to help satisfy feminists and cynics alike. The other human characters are generic. Jane’s father feels like a retread of the scatter-brained Maurice and Clayton an oversimplified version of Gaston (both from Beauty and the Beast). Tarzan’s animal friends, for all their modern wit and dialogue, feel like a weak attempt to recreate the magic of The Jungle Book.

As for the usual Disney elements, Tarzan comes up about even. The animation shows signs of progress in blending CGI and traditional animation, but some shots are overdone. Without a big musical hit in a couple of years, Disney pulled out all the stops and signed Phil Collins to write the music. Some of the songs are used as background tracks, rather than being sung by the characters. It sets a mood but the music never really grips you. I hope that is an objective observation and not my indifference for Phil Collins surfacing. The music may have won awards, but I don’t view any of the tunes as among Disney’s best.

As you may suspect, I am wholly indifferent to this film. There is nothing wrong with it per se; it just doesn’t do it for me. It’s loud, colorful, and perfectly fine for entertaining the kids but Disney magic seems to be in short supply in Tarzan. It’s hard to say who is at fault for this. It could be the source material or it could be the Disney treatment of said source material. In the end, it is a tolerable, largely well-made animated film that I will probably watch with my daughter only if she suggests it.

RATING: 3 out of 5

Enchanted (2007)

After several years worth of snarky, self-aware fairy tale-skewering Hollywood hits, Disney finally caught on and took aim at its own lengthy portfolio of animated cheese. Enchanted more than hits the mark. It destroys the mark altogether. Where one would expect Disney to hold back in reverence to its most time-honored fairy tale conventions, Enchanted lays it on thick, as if it were one of the cynical hecklers that live to berate schmaltz.

The film opens as if it were an animated film. A beautiful young maiden named Giselle has secretly caught the ire of an evil queen. Giselle wakes in the morning, sings a sweet song and receives help in getting ready for the day with the help of her animal friends. These early scenes had my eyes rolling and my gut busting with laughter. Make no mistake, Disney’s pulling no punches.

The evil queen tries but fails to dispatch of the maiden before her dashing prince of a son discovers and falls madly in love with her. It’s perfectly gag-tastic. As a last ditch effort, the queen throws the girl into an enchanted well and she ends up as a flesh and blood human being in our world. Wanting to break the idealistic Giselle’s outlook, the queen sent her to New York City, where she would be surrounded by cynical, impatient and rude people around every corner.

Dressed in a huge, poofy dress, Giselle walks the streets looking for help. Jaded and bitter New Yorkers just pay her no mind and she is left nearly desperate. She finds help in Robert Phillip (Patrick Dempsey), a divorced father of one. His daughter quickly falls in love with the idea of having a real princess in their apartment but Robert just wants to put her up for a night and get the nut out of his place.

Sure enough, her prince travels to our world in search of his one true love. He is “assisted” by one of his mother’s advisors, who tries to do everything he can to prevent the prince from succeeding. More of the culture clash humor arises from his quest than from Giselle’s predicament. There are plenty of laughs from her end of the story, but there is also the serious side, which dilutes the fun ever so slightly. You know, the moral of the story.

For all the goofy fun that Enchanted brings to the table, Disney couldn’t help but fall victim to some of the same conventions they roast. The ending is fairly predictable, but it is, after all, a fairy tale. What fairy tale isn’t predictable?

Enchanted is one of the rare films that just about everyone can enjoy. The snarky jibes at fairy tale clichés will appeal to the cynics while the idealistic romanticism will appeal to the rest of the crowd. It makes a few things very clear- First, there’s a reason why fairy tales are best left animated. The costumes and songs are all immensely ridiculous when being worn and sung by flesh and blood actors. Second, cynical views of life and happiness are only okay in small doses. Enchanted really manages to kill two birds with one stone and get two messages out there. Good job.

Also, credit has to be given to the actors. Amy Adams and James Marsden really sell their vapid characters. They go all out and appear to be uninhibited by any doubts about looking or sounding as silly as they do. Dempsey gives a committed performance as an all-too-straight talking dad who doesn’t wish to be bothered by any of Giselle’s delusional yammerings.

The writing is dead on, the acting is tight and the music is light and fun. Enchanted shows that Disney has a sense of humor and can pick on themselves like nobody else. It’s a solid film overall, but it’s not worthy of multiple viewings. You’ll either grow too cynical or to idealistic if you watch it too much. Pull this one out from time to time when you need a good laugh.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5