TARZAN is adapted yet again for this 3D CGI animated film. This time we get a contemporary American child lost in an African jungle. Raised by gorillas, JJ (voiced by Lutz as a teenager) quickly forgets his New York roots and adapts to swinging his way around the rainforest.
A not-so-casual encounter with Jane Porter (Locke) when they are both teenagers imprints on Tarzan an interesting character to be sought out, so no wonder he finds her again when they are older.
Throw in a greedy corporation helmed by William Clayton (St John) who wants to find a renewable source of energy, which is lying in the jungle, and Tarzan becomes an eco-warrior for the Noughties. Wait… what? Erm. Ja. The story’s been updated.
The animation is a weird mix of gorgeously rendered scenes and many more badly made, seemingly unfinished sequences.
They can’t even make the regular characters simply walk properly, instead characters glide with that creepy not walking motion we know so well from Barbie movies. Characters have dead eyes and while some of the gorillas’ behaviour is anthropomorphised (they are motion captured actors and not virtual creations) none of them stand out as particularly engaging or fascinating.
Characterisation is lacking – who knows what Tarzan is thinking or what Jane thinks of this wild child she meets in the jungle or how he feels about living with animals, then finding out he isn’t one.
Don’t worry though, just in case you can’t tell what is going on, there is a narrator. Awkward.
If you liked Animals United or The Missing Lynx, you will like this.