#37 Tarzan

After ten years and ten films that defined an era in animation history, the Disney Renaissance came to an end in 1999 with Tarzan, Disney's adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' pulp icon. As with other Disney adaptations, the film redefined its subject for a new generation, giving us a Tarzan that ranks on par with the Beast as a masterstroke of character design. Bearing little resemblance to the Hollywood hunks that played the character in B-pictures dating back to 1918, this Tarzan is leaner, wilder, and more feral, possessing an air of innocence and intensity in equal measure. What truly sells Tarzan is his animation, as he runs and swings through the jungle with an animalistic elegance, moving like a man who really did learn how to walk from gorillas.

As a whole, the denizens of the jungle are moderately enjoyable without being overly memorable. Lest we forget this film was released in the nineties, we've got Rosie O'Donnell as Terk and Wayne Knight as Tantor, both of whom are used chiefly for somewhat distracting comic relief, although their friendship with Tarzan at least feels sincere. Glenn Close's performance as Tarzan's adoptive mother, Kala, provides the emotional anchor for the film; she rescues Tarzan as a baby and provides him with stability throughout his life, first as an outsider child in the gorilla family, then as an adult confronted with other humans, knowledge of the outside world, and the question of whether he belongs among ape or man. On the human side, Minnie Driver gives an interpretation of Jane that's charmingly awkward, yet progressive; she's a naturalist who comes to Africa to study the gorillas, and not simply here to function as Tarzan's jungle bride. The film's villain, Clayton, meanwhile, is a sinister take on the Great White Hunter archetype, revealing the greed and savagery below the suave exterior of a man who views the natural world as his to claim for his own.

Musically, Tarzan's songs are mostly non-diegetic (not sung by characters within the film) and handled by no less a person than Phil Collins. While Collins is no Elton John, his distinctive vocal timbre fits surprisingly well here, with all of his songs punctuating and enhancing the story and none of them feeling dated (although "Son of Man" is a bit too Collins for its own good, instrumentally at least). "Two Worlds" opens the film while laying down the central theme, "Strangers Like Me" captures the yearning and sense of wonder as Tarzan learns of the human world for the first time, and "You'll Be In My Heart," while admittedly a bit sappy out of context, earns its place in the canon of big, sweeping Disney ballads.

As the twentieth century ended and the twenty-first began, increased competition from studios such as Pixar and Dreamworks as well as changes within Disney as a company would result in an output that was diverse, risky, occasionally ambitious, and wildly inconsistent. For much of the next ten years, Disney would be heading back to the wilderness.