Tarzan Blu-ray despite stunning video and great audio falls short as an overall poor Blu-ray release
Tarzan and Jane Porter face a mercenary army dispatched by the evil CEO of Greystoke Energies, a man who took over the company from Tarzan's parents, after they died in a plane crash.
For more about Tarzan and the Tarzan Blu-ray release, see Tarzan Blu-ray Review published by Jeffrey Kauffman on July 28, 2014 where this Blu-ray release scored 2.0 out of 5.
Edgar Rice Burroughs' immortal ape man Tarzan has been put through the adaptation mill so many times that it's almost hard to keep count,
with efforts as disparate as Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes to Tarzan to numerous charming if hokey Johnny Weissmuller films, but you've still seen nothing quite like the opening
fifteen
minutes or so of this 2013 iteration, ever so cleverly entitled Tarzan. This particular Tarzan starts in outer space,
ladies
and germs, but whether or not you want to give slack jawed but somewhat admiring kudos or simply throw brickbats will probably depend
on
what happens next. There's something big and black hurtling toward a primeval Earth of some seventy million years ago (as
is described by an initially omnipresent narration), and while it initially looks like it might be some kind of Alien-esque spaceship, it actually turns out to be "the meteor" that caused the extinction
of the dinosaurs. Except, wait--maybe it's also an Alien-esque spaceship! The film then segues to two simultaneously
unfolding stories. In this "revision", young Greystoke is--well, some sort of child. He looks to be about seven or eight based on his
animated height in relationship to his parents, and yet he behaviorally seems to be closer to two. Maybe he has a growth hormone problem.
JJ, as he's called, is in Africa with his parents, who are escorting a man named Porter on an expedition to find a (gasp!) mysterious meteor
rumored by the ancients to have awesome powers. Intercut with this drama is the story of ape mother Kala, who of course loses her own
child, albeit under totally different circumstances than usually utilized. When Greystoke and his parents stumble upon the meteor site while
leaving Africa in a helicopter, Greystoke's father makes the brilliant (and quite archeologically correct, mind you) decision to break off a chunk
of the mammoth rock, causing cataclysmic consequences which result in a crashed helicopter and an orphan human boy being taken
care of by an ape Mama.
Now mind you, all of the above takes place in the whirlwind first fifteen minutes of Tarzan and by the end of that quarter hour, those
who don't already mind how much the film's writers have monkeyed around (sorry, couldn't resist) with the basics of Burroughs' original tale
probably won't mind where things go next. Suffice it to say that despite the fact that little JJ Greystoke is old enough to talk and run and
obviously have deep seated memories of his parents, he evidently lapses back into a preverbal state once he lives long enough with the
apes,
and once the inevitable Jane Porter shows up, he has to grapple with his identity as a human. There are actually some interesting touches
here, despite the almost willful discarding of a lot of the Burroughs canon. For example, one of Tarzan's first primal screams comes when
he's
overcome with emotion at the site of his parents' death, when he's suddenly confronted with a flood of memories.
This Tarzan is obviously not content to merely spool out the "same old" story that viewers have been digesting for several
generations now, but its decision to add a kind of Indiana Jones aspect to the proceedings, along with some patent science fiction
elements, makes this a hard pill to swallow at times. There are also lapses in logic even within the confines of the film itself. Little JJ's father
is shown to be a disbeliever in the supposed "magical meteor" in the film's opening sequence, but later, when his company (now run
by avaricious bean counters intent on world domination�of course) decides to explore the jungle for the crashed space rock, they state how
they're completing their founder's last goal. It's an admittedly minor point, but it points up the kind of ragged screenwriting this outing often
offers.
While the interactions between Tarzan (voiced by Kellan Lutz once the ape man reaches the age of majority) and Jane (Spencer Locke) are
relatively well done, it's Tarzan's relationships with his ape family where the film (probably appropriately) finds its true emotional bearing.
There are some very touching moments here between Tarzan and Kala, aided by some above average rendering of the apes (the film was
animated with motion capture techniques, and while the humans don't look particularly realistic, some of the apes are viscerally compelling).
Things just get downright silly in the third act of the film, with a megalomaniac executive of Greystoke Industries trying to harness the
supposedly infinite power of the meteor, while Jane, her father and of course Tarzan attempt to head off calamity. There's not much
suspense here, but there is a cartwheeling design aesthetic that throws everything from volcanic wastelands to snow covered mountaintops
at the viewer's eyes, hoping that something will stick.
Tarzan is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. The film was released
theatrically in some markets in a 3D iteration, though only a 2D Blu-ray is available domestically at this time. The 3D gimmickry is repeatedly
apparent here from virtually the first moment, as the camera zooms through a field of space debris. Jungle environments are similarly rendered in
discrete planes of depth, and even in the 2D environment are surprisingly complex looking. All of the action was animated with the help of motion
capture, and that makes a lot of the movement here wonderfully fluid and realistic looking. The ironic thing about the actual animation, as
alluded to above, is how weirdly putty like the humans look (especially in their faces), while the apes are surprisingly realistic, with great
rendering of their fur. Colors are extremely vivid, and some nice attention to things like dappled sunlight offer beautiful tonal variations within
the frame. While this is a progressive presentation, there are occasional very slight anomalies that look almost like combing artifacts, problems
that tend to crop up in scenes where there's a lot of very fast action. You have to look sharp to catch these elements, however, and the bulk of
Tarzan provides a very satisfying viewing experience, even if the film itself doesn't.
Tarzan's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix comes replete with a glut of sound effects which bounce around the surround channels
with good consistency, offering nicely immersive sequences throughout the film. Jungle noises are very well handled and provide some sonic
depth which matches the film's original 3D video presentation. Voices are clearly defined and well prioritized, even if the dialogue is often fairly
ridiculous. The track boasts excellent fidelity and suffers from no overt issues whatsoever.
Becoming Gorillas (1080p; 7:18) looks at some of the training the motion capture actors had to go through.
The Making of Tarzan (1080p; 11:01) offers even more looks at the motion capture process, as well as including interviews
with
Kellan Lutz and Spencer Locke among others.
Behind the Scenes with Kellan Lutz and Spencer Locke (1080p; 8:00) offers more of the same.
With Disney's Tarzan about to hit Blu-ray shelves, this release may
strike some as a patently mendacious cash grab (especially for those parents not paying attention to the fine print on the packaging), but this
Tarzan, while certainly very little like Burroughs' original formulation, at least tries something a little different. The results are highly
variable, but I personally found the animation here to be rather winning, at least if one takes the humans out of the equation. The story itself is
exceedingly hackneyed, and may actually remind some of another Burroughs effort which fared none too well on the big screen, John Carter. Technical merits here are quite strong for those
curious to check out this decidedly odd retelling of an oft-told tale.
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Lionsgate Home Entertainment will release on Blu-ray director Reinhard Klooss' animated film Tarzan: The Legend Lives (2013), featuring the voices of Kellan Lutz, Robert Capron, and Jaime Ray Newman. Street date is February 10, 2015.
British distributors Entertainment One have officially announced that they will release on 3D/2D Blu-ray Reinhard Klooss' animated film Tarzan (2013), featuring the voices of Kellan Lutz, Robert Capron, and Jaime Ray Newman. The release will be available for purchase ...
Lionsgate Home Entertainment has officially announced that it will release on Blu-ray director Reinhard Klooss' animated film Tarzan: The Legend Lives (2013), featuring the voices of Kellan Lutz, Robert Capron, and Jaime Ray Newman. The release will be available ...
Use the thumbs up and thumbs down icons to agree or disagree that the title is similar to Tarzan. You can also suggest completely new similar titles to Tarzan in the search box below.
