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New Escapist Column! On “Strange Worlds” as a Love Letter to Disney’s Forgotten “Boys’ Own” Adventures…

Posted on November 29, 2022 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist yesterday. With the release of Strange World, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look at the latest animated film from Disney.

Many of the more recent high-profile Disney animated films have been anchored in the brand’s “princess” iconography, feeling like extensions of classics like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. Part of what is interesting about Strange World is that it is a movie rooted in another, rather under-explored, chapter in the history of Disney’s animated filmmaking. Strange World is best understood as an extension of the wave of oft-forgotten “Adventureland” movies of the turn of the millennium, those movies aimed more overtly at boys, like Tarzan, Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Treasure Planet.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: adventure, adventureland, atlantis: the lost empire, disney, escapist, in the frame, strange worlds, tarzan, the escapist, treasure planet | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: The Legend of Tarzan

Posted on July 5, 2016 by Darren

The Legend of Tarzan is a dysfunctional film.

It is an interesting film in many ways, eschewing a lot of the conventional choices when it comes to adapting the Lord of the Jungle for the silver screen. There are a lot of reasons why this adaptation might want to steer clear of familiar trappings like the origin story or opt for an unconventional starting point, and the result is one of the most intriguing of the year’s big blockbusters. The Legend of Tarzan never follows the path of least resistance, and the resulting film is more fascinating for that.

“Anyone for tea?”

It is also a lot less satisfying. Tarzan is an archetypal character. Many of the character’s trappings linger in popular memory. Even people who have never seen a Tarzan film will recognise the character’s battle cry. The loincloth is just as iconic as Superman’s red underwear. There are certain expectations in a Tarzan adaptation. Defying many of those choices is a bold storytelling decision, but that decision creates an absence at the heart of the film. Director David Yates and star Alexander Skarsgård never manage to fill that void.

The result is a film that is fun to puzzle out, but not entirely engaging on its own terms. Characters repeatedly acknowledge “the Legend of Tarzan”, whether sketched on posters or memorialised in song. However, the film spends so much of its first half picking apart the legend that it struggles to put it back together at the climax.

Note: there is more colour in this frame than in the entire film.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: David Yates, film, Movie, non-review review, review, tarzan, the legend of tarzan | 4 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Tarzan (2013)

Posted on April 23, 2014 by Darren

Tarzan is a mess. The core tale of a boy raised by apes who struggles to reconnect with his human heritage will always have resonance – the character has endured much more successfully than Edgar Rice Borroughs’ other pulp hero, John Carter. However, this motion-capture adaptation feels like it spends more time pandering and condescending than it does trying to tell an interesting or engaging story.

All the “big” Tarzan moments are hit with the enthusiasm of checking off a list (from “me, Tarzan — you, Jane” to “ooo-ee-ooo-ee-ooo-ee-ooo!”), but there is a staggering lack of trust in the idea of Tarzan to carry a Tarzan movie. Tarzan is a family film that very heavily talks down to its audience – a family constructed around the idea that children aren’t smart enough to follow basic narrative structures. So not only is the plot incredibly one-dimensional, predictable and linear, it is repeatedly and patronisingly explained to the audience.

I am Tarzan, hear me roar!

The last decade has seen an explosion in family-friendly movies that don’t talk down to the younger members of the audience. They recognise that children are not idiots and are capable of following basic plot structures and recognising archetypes. Generally speaking, the success of classic Pixar speaks to the idea that children are shrewder than most animators would have conceded. The strong family films of the last few years have followed suit, realising that kids don’t just want bright colours and snazzy animation – they want the same thing any viewer wants, a good story well told.

Tarzan feels like something on an unnecessary hold-over. The movie looks fairly good – even if the motion capture isn’t cutting edge, the 3D is rendered very well; even if the environments outside the jungle look like levels from a videogame, the jungle itself feels vibrant. However, the script isn’t even willing to stand aside and let the visuals carry the story. The result is a patronising and condescending mess that feels like it is talking down to an audience that it grossly under-estimates.