The Disney animated version. Though it may be hard to work up enthusiasm for the much-filmed subject, even for a pledge of fidelity to the original Edgar Rice Burroughs novel, it must be conceded that the tale is gotten off the dime with great speed and clarity: parallel family units, human and ape, each suffering losses at the claws of a jungle cat, and fusing their broken halves into a new and imperfect whole. The ongoing power struggle between father and adopted son is psychologically quite thorny, and the fundamental question of identity is pursued pretty close to the collegiate level of Existentialism 101. The songs, kept to a handful, are written and performed (in the capacity of a singing narrator, not that of an on-screen presence) by rock-and-roller Phil Collins, who puts the brakes on Disney's downhill slide into imitation-Broadway campiness. The story, too, is done more or less straight, with none of the warping pressures of PC sexual politics: this is Tarzan's turf, and Jane is decorously green. The too familiar and too New York voice of Rosie O'Donnell, in the role of one of the de rigueur comic-relief sidekicks, is a disheartening vestige of Broadway. But the other sidekick, a Nervous Nellie elephant voiced by Wayne Knight ("It's all fun and games till someone loses an eye!"), is worth putting up with for his glorious turnaround at the climactic moment of crisis. With Tony Goldwyn, Minnie Driver, Glenn Close, Lance Henriksen, Nigel Hawthorne, Brian Blessed; directed by Kevin Lima and Chris Buck. (1999) — Duncan Shepherd
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