In this series, Lauren will rewatch Disney movies from her childhood to see what sort of trauma she can drudge up.
TODAY’S FILM: Tarzan – 1999 – Rated G
WHAT I REMEMBER: What I remember: I distinctly remember seeing this one in theaters. It was a little field trip with my babysitter, Darlene. In my memory, there were a few of us kids piled into her red van, but honestly, it may have just been me. We had driven to some theater well outside of Wilmington (my hometown), but couldn’t tell ya which one. What I do remember is that this theater had a small arcade in the lobby. I was never that big on games like those, but I remember thinking that it felt really weird that those games were all lit up and making noise, but there weren’t any kids playing them. It must’ve been the middle of a school day or early on a Saturday or something. God, did I dream this?
Fun little note about the movie theater in Wilmington: There were several years when the springs on the seats were so tight, and I was so little that I’d have to hold my mom’s enormous purse in my lap to keep the seat from folding in on me. Sitting next to her at the movies and being dropped off at the mall were my mom’s ideas of bonding with me.
She really nailed it.
PLEASE NOTE: I have no problem keeping a seat down now.
THE PLOT, AS I REMEMBER IT: A human child is left behind by some parents who were… killed in some way? There was some sort of ruckus. The kid, Tarzan, is found abandoned in this treehouse situation by a female silverback. When she takes the kid to her gorilla husband, he’s not about it, but mom makes it work. Alright. So then an impossibly thin female researcher and her bumbling father come to explore the island, I’m pretty sure with the goal of studying the gorillas.
Is Rosie O’Donnel the voice of one of the gorillas? There’s no way to know.
One day in the rain, the thin chick is cornered by some predators or something and Tarzan saves her. But he’s shy. So they touch hands weirdly. There’s a lot of adorable miscommunication where they work to try and understand each other. There’s a big musical number where the gorillas jam out using various trinkets brought by the humans.
Eventually, the humans must leave. Our emaciated love interest doesn’t want to leave. So she hops off the boat and comes to live with Tarzan for all of time. Dad sticks around as well, I believe.
I’m confident I didn’t leave out a single detail. Prove me wrong.
AS I’M WATCHING: Ope. Had forgotten that the boat goes down. Also this family feels very obviously Irish? I had also forgotten that this family CHOSE to stay in the jungle. Also, were they the only people on that giant ship? Seems wasteful. Love seeing the montage of parallels between the gorilla family and the human family.
DAMN. Was not prepared for the jungle cat to straight up EAT that baby gorilla! Jesus, no wonder all 30 year olds are in therapy now.
CHRIST, the jungle cat kills the human parents?! This is WAY darker than I remember. Good lord. After a sweet moment of mother gorilla meeting Tarzan, the damn cat shows up again and after a tense fight scene, the stupid cat gets hung by the foot.
Catch a tiger by the toe, if you will.
I won’t.
So many parallels to Jungle Book. Also, Phil Collins killing it as always. I remembered that, but didn’t put it above. Just pretend I did.
The initiation involving the elephant hair reminds me of being a kid and playing Fear Factor with my brother in the blue house where we spent our early years. We’d make gross concoctions with whatever was in the fridge and force the other person to eat it. My brother, being many years older than me, was much better at this because 1) he understood flavors better and 2) could read. We were once playing while we had a babysitter over. Brad. Brad insisted on playing. We warned him it was gross. No, he insisted, let him play (looking back it was probably to make sure we weren’t incorporating paint thinner or Borax into any of our cocktails). He took one sip of a vinegar, chocolate milk mystery-beverage and immediately threw up on the kitchen tile.
He did not watch us again. Hope you’re doing ok, Brad.
The kid grows up and is still not approved of by his step dad. Big bummer. Then one day, that damn cat comes back, Tarzan kills him, and then presents its carcass to his fake dad. Before they can have a touching moment, this story’s Jafar shows up, shoot a gun at anything that startles him, which happens to be everything.
We meet the goofy dad and the surprisingly bumbling daughter. I had forgotten how Hugh Grant-y she is. She draws a picture of a monkey, which everyone knows is a huge mistake (@showencantdraw), which leads to an epic chase where Tarzan is our hero. He does some weird improv exercises with her before he swings her through the trees back to her camp.
Our crew of teen gorillas and a neurotic elephant arrive at the human’s camp and put on a pretty neat jazz performance. Love the subtle nod to Beauty and The Beast with the tea set. Unfortunately, the jam-sesh is cut short when the gorilla king shows up and is pissed. He tells all the lesser gorillas not to go near the humans, especially Tarzan. Of course, Tarzan immediately ignores him and goes to the camp where he learns a very strange assortment of worldly things via an overhead projector: Dancing, space, London. Basically everything a human who’s never seen a toilet needs to know.
Tarzan also teaches Jane stuff, like how to swing from vines and where to look at birds. So. Win/win.
Tarzan has started to catch feelings for Jane and is crushed when he finds out that the boat has arrived to take her away. Which is just… an incredible amount of concepts to comprehend after two days. He’s also using conjunctions. In two days. And stupid babies in America take YEARS to learn conjunctions.
Anywho.
Clayton (the Jafar of this story who has a gun always) manipulates Tarzan into showing Jane some gorillas (if you know what I mean). The whole crew goes to see the gorillas, but of course, gorilla king figures it out and is pissed, so he comes barging in to ruin the party. Tarzan chokes him out to protect the humans. He scurries away, unsure whether he should continue being a gorilla or learn more about tea.
Tarzan’s mom takes him to the home where he was found, which seems about 20 years too late to do. Couldn’t have been that far away, just don’t visit that side of town much, I guess? Anyway, Tarzan comes out of the house wearing his dead dad’s clothes, which is a whole other thing–are there just two skeletons chilling in there? Isn’t that probably going to be traumatic to this being who just learned like 4 days ago that they’re human?
Now in his very well-fitting suit, he gets on a boat with the humans to head to England. BUT WAIT. A bunch of brutes chase him and beat him up. Turns up Clayton was a dick the whole time. Who would’ve thought. He reveals that they’re about to trap a bunch of gorillas and it’s Tarzan’s fault. Lacking curse words, he just screams really loud, which brings Rosie O’Donnell and… who’s the actor who played Newman in Seinfeld? I think it’s his voice.
Let me check.
Boom, called it. Wayne Knight.
Anyway, these two bozos head out to the ship to save the now incarcerated Jane, dad, and Tarzan. Tarzan jumps into the ocean just like his dad did all those years ago to go back and save his family.
Cut to the jungle, crews of absolute assholes are after the gorillas, putting them in cages and nets. Just as it appears that Clayton is going to kill our grumpy stepdad, Tarzan shows up, mostly naked again. He frees most of the gorillas, but his mom is being carried away, so Jane uses her new gorilla skills to get her free. Clayton, continuing to be an asshole, shoots at stepdad and misses, hitting Tarzan. This infuriates stepdad, who charges at Clayton and is shot.
Now Tarzan is even MORE mad, but injured, so he only gets like 100 feet in the air into the trees of the jungle. Clayton somehow follows–with his stupid gun–and ultimately GETS HUNG BY HIS OWN DEVICES. And they SHOW IT. A man HANGING. I… I cannot believe I was allowed to watch this movie as a child. My god, as an adult!
Of course, stepdad is dead. His dying words are, “hey sorry I was a huge dick your whole life. I’m passing on this enormous responsibility of taking care of like 100 of your peers. Bye.” So Tarzan yodels, which I believe is how gorillas assert dominance.
Now it’s time for Jane and her dad to leave. Guess they’re just leaving the carcass of their bodyguard behind? Tarzan can’t go with because he can’t WFH. They quickly do more mirroring exercises like a level 1 improv class (amateurs). She hops on the boat, and her dad is like, “hey bimbo, you love him.” In that moment, she loses her glove to the ocean breeze. She’s like, yeah, I guess I do want to live with gorillas and this very sexy man-gorilla forever, so she swims to him and kisses him, but it turns out kissing wasn’t one of the slides on the projector. so it goes poorly. They figure it out though.
But what’s this? Dad’s crazy too! He’s staying! Jane tells the gorillas what’s happening in like, absolutely perfect gorilla dialect.
Everyone in this new blended family is happy.
Except… the like… 10 characters who died.
The end.
FINAL THOUGHTS: What I don’t think I mentioned at the top of this is that the babysitter who took us to see this movie, Darlene, was extremely religious. We weren’t allowed to watch Sabrina after school or read Harry Potter, and yet… a baby gorilla eaten by a jungle cat? Two dead parents? A man HANGING? Let’s hit the matinee!
Soundtrack absolutely slaps. Tarzan can get it. The dad in this movie is 100% the same character as the Sultan in Aladdin. Lotta Aladdin in this movie. Also Jungle Book. Also Lion King.
…I’m sensing a pattern.
OVERALL RATING: 6/10