Tarzan

This is a mess of a movie, the real problem is the animation style that just looks like plastic people. Not the Disney story, but no blood, or death is really ever shown so it might as well be. The water physics are good, but as soon as you add the characters to that water it all goes out the window. The world is beautiful, but as soon as you put most of these plastic people into it it just makes them look more like dolls in a play set that is kind of mixed up. The main story is good, and some of the moving shots are really well done. I found myself on more than one occasion really impressed with 2 or 3 seconds here or there, just not often enough to make up for the problems. There are glaring collision issues that are never fixed, and there are entire scenes that feel like they have not been finished which really makes this production suffer. Now there are also issues with the story that are incredibly stupid, and any child will take these things as insults to them directly. Take just one example as the area that Tarzan, and Jane enter around midway through the story that the narrator (who is uncredited, and sounds like Nathan Fillion)describes as having never been seen by man, the entrance to which is overlooked by 2 large carved heads, and there are stairs through out. There really is something here though when you dig down below the awful look of the movie, and the terrible way in which the entire production was handled that you have not seen, some really amazing shots of Tarzan traveling through the forest, and other motion shots which I really did Enjoy watching. However most people will find this whole thing to feel out of date, and 2 years too late. Hard to recommend for anyone other than a true fan of animation, or Tarzan fans who like seeing new takes on the Greystoke (ala Stark Industries) story lines.

The movie starts off with a giant "extraterrestrial" meteor plummeting into Earth, extinguishing all dinosaurs (except for three weird bird-dinosaurs which appear later in the film with no explanation whatsoever). Flash-forward to modern day where we see that the mystical meteor is shrouded in mist and for some reason, is protected by the apes of the jungle. John Greystoke, father of JJ (Tarzan) and CEO/founder of Greystoke Energies, is here on an expedition to find the meteor and harvest its alleged unlimited power. Although he is skeptical of its existence, he manages to find it, and enrage it by stealing a piece of it (I was as confused as you might be). The meteor causes the weather to go crazy, a gorilla face appears in the clouds, and the helicopter that John Greystoke and family were trying to escape in, crashes into the jungle, killing everyone but Tarzan. Some deaths happen within the gorilla community and this causes mama-gorilla to wander the jungle mourning her lost child, whom she quickly replaces with Tarzan. Flash-forward again past some awkward and nonsensical encounters with some other monkeys, a snake, the weird dinosaur-birds and a fat-stupid-tourist-kid, and Tarzan meets Jane. A few years later, Jane convinces William Clayton, new CEO of Greystoke Energies, to journey to Africa for what she thinks is a conservation mission. Tarzan meets Jane again and can suddenly speak perfect English, and the two plot to bring down Clayton and his "army". Cue the weird stuff. Apparently the meteor can cause plants to become sentient and grow teeth? So this plant attacks Tarzan and Jane, Tarzan is able to subdue the savage plant beast with a small knife and the pair continue on to Jane's capture. Tarzan's mama-gorilla gets shot and next-to-no attention is paid to this. Clayton continues trying to get the Unobtanium and Tar-Jane keep foiling his plan until Clayton is finally defeated by the jungle and the meteor? Jane decides to leave behind civilization and life as she knows it to stay with Tarzan in the jungle so that the two can protect the meteor forever. YAWN. The narrator continues to say that Tarzan has found the most powerful thing in the universe, the love of a woman. The CGI is poor, the facial features seem wooden and cause an uncanny valley response and the voice acting is moderate at best. The story seems like a first draft of James Cameron's 'Avatar' and the poor script-writing leaves much to be desired. Do not waste your time or money on this film, and do not show this to your children.

I loved this story as a young kid so when I saw this coming out I thought that I will take my 6 years old to watch it - I watched the trailer and it was not looking baby-ish which he can't stand... so deal... Unfortunately I had to after that forever explain to my kid that this was not actually the real story and that meteorites and Tarzan have nothing in common... Not very good and truth be told - there would have been a great market for this movie as (already mentioned) it would have called to the kids that have grown out of musical animations if it was representing the story as told by E.R. Burrows. As not the case I would not recommend to anyone. Still gave 6 as animation not bad at all.