Tarzan & Jane

I know it's been over 3 years since I had supposedly reviewed every single direct to video Disney sequel & . But there was in fact two I had forgotten & one of them is the topic of today's discussion, Tarzan & Jane. And the most ironic part of all of this is my sister & I had owned the DVD (yes, I had grown up with during the time Disney sequels were out. Shoot me) & I had stumbled upon it while cleaning out under my bed. So now that , will Tarzan & Jane manage to show their romance is worth seeing again, or is this as bad as Tarzan 3D. Let's take a look!

Story: Like Belle's Magical World and Atlantis: Milo's Return, this would be the type of sequel with 3 episodes from a TV series cobbled up together into a 'sequel'. However, in a different case, the TV series did end up airing & was fairly popular, but it got canned & they still had some episodes which didn't air (although they did in later airings from what I remember) so they decided to show them as 'flashbacks'. The set-up is that it's Tarzan & Jane's first anniversary & Jane is anxious over what to do with/give her husband to celebrate it. Terk & Tantor come in to remind her of events in the past once she brings things up that she could do with him that didn't quite go to plan. I'll go into each one individually, but it is safe to say the flashbacks have absolutely no connection or segway other than 'Hey, remember when this happened?' or bringing up something because of the anniversary set up yet having absolutely nothing to do with either weddings or anniversaries (Heck, even Jane lampshades this in the segment with the diamond plot)!

The British Invasion
In this 'segment,' connected by Terk reminding Jane of what happened when her 3 friends, Eleanor, Greenly & Hazel, came to visit her after Jane suggests throwing a party for the anniversary. After they had arrived in the jungle to 'rescue her' & Jane informs them that Tarzan is actually her husband, she tries to convince them the jungle isn't that bad by having a picnic which goes horribly wrong after 2 panthers attack them. Meanwhile, Tarzan is worried that Jane is embarrassed by him when she tries to have him act more like a gentleman, only to be quickly resolved by the end when he saves the women & shows how much she appreciates her new life with him. As you can tell, this has nothing to do with the theme of parties & is hopelessly cliched with nothing that new to make it stand out. I guess I can give them credit that they show Tarzan & Jane acting more like a real married couple by having them argue over her being embarrassed by him, but given the subject of said argument & the setting, it just left me bored. In fact, that's what this entire segment left me as after watching it!

The Volcanic Diamond Mine
In the second segment, after Terk reminds Jane what happened when Tarzan tried to give her a diamond after she suggests some sort of jewelry as a gift. He tries to help two men, Johannes & Merkus, smuggle diamonds from a mine within a volcano (yes, really) after they make a deal for him to help them in exchange for a diamond for Jane. Johannes & Merkus agree & find hundreds of diamonds but it turns out they're obvious bad guys & leaves Tarzan. Jane & Professor Porter trapped in the volcano that's about to explode. Conflict ensues, yadda yadda yadda, the villains are defeated, the end! I guess this has a bit more of a connection as Tarzan's main goal was to give Jane a diamond, but even then it mostly focuses on him helping the guys get to the diamonds while being oblivious to them being obviously evil. And to add insult to injury, it gets utterly ridiculous how he manage to scrape out of the mess when the group are trapped within the volcano! As you can tell, it left me bored because of how predictable it was & honestly, pretty pointless.

The Flying Ace
Once Professor Porter comes in to suggest that Jane & Tarzan share a dance for their anniversary, this somehow segways into a flashback where Jane's childhood friend Robert comes back into her life, Tarzan gets jealous, it turns out Robert's really a double agent working for the Germans in WWI (he's there to retrieve a code machine disguised as a music box he gave to Jane during their youth. Yes, it doesn't make any sense whatsoever) & tries to kidnap Jane until Tarzan comes to save her in a superfluous plane fight sequence. Oh yeah, and there's a subplot with Professor Porter trying to work his two way radio & another RAF Pilot on the hunt for Robert! As you can tell, this is easily the weakest one out of all of them because not only is it even more cliched than the first flashback, but it has absolutely no connection whatsoever to the suggestion of Tarzan & Jane dancing for their anniversary other than them briefly dancing to the Blue Danube Waltz (which in itself has nothing to do with the main plot of this episode). On top of that, the whole flashback makes no sense whatsoever from Robert's plan with the code machine to Professor Porter's methods to make his radio work. Yet again, this just left me confused & bored with how convoluted it was.

And need I forget the big anniversary plot which ends with a typical dance party ending to a terrible song by Disney Pop Princess Mandy Moore (I don't blame her necessarily since she tries her best with it) which takes up the last 5 minutes of the movie? With all of these dull stories which have little to do with anything, it really is safe to say that this movie is as bad as the aforementioned Belle's Magical World & Atlantis: Milo's Return.

Animation: I think it's safe to say that the quality of animation in this is...lower compared to the movie. Not only do the characters look much more basic with their designs & very off model, but it feels very inconsistent with some designs looking much more cartoony than others (at least in the first movie, it was more balanced out). It doesn't really help the character animation is a massive downgrade because it's nowhere near as fluid or exciting whenever Tarzan would swing on vines or go tree surfing or creative on the gorrillas and Tantor! Along with that, unlike the first movie, the facial animation can go all over the place with the more subdued human characters having over the top expressions which look really out of place, similar to Beauty & the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas & Mulan II. Even the backgrounds don't really give off the grand scale of the African jungles & mostly look generic with the interactions with the characters being nowhere near as integrated as the first movie. Another factor that really affects the movie that there isn't really any lighting or shadows, leaving the characters looking completely flat & not giving the backgrounds a lot of dimension. That, and the textures don't look or feel like what they supposed to be & the sizes of the human characters & animals is nowhere near as accurate as in the first movie. While I guess the quality matches that with the TV series, so it isn't as inconsistent as others integrating canned episodes, it doesn't mean it's good at all. In fact, far from it in this case.

Characters: As expected, the characters in this are just one dimensional cutouts of their former selves. Tarzan is the ape man who loves Jane while learning more about civilization except his 'arcs' are not interesting to know about & Jane on the other hand is nowhere near as interesting & is just reduced to being the typical damsel in distress that the character is normally associated. I don't know whether part of it is Minnie Driver not returning to voice her, but she just doesn't carry the same eccentric or charming qualities from before. Even in the episodes, while they try to make her a bit more by standing up to other characters & being a bit snarky, she still ends up being a damsel in distress. Terk (now voiced by April Winchell who is definitely no Rosie O'Donnell despite her best efforts) & Tantor are just the 'quirky' animal sidekicks yet are nowhere near as funny as before & Professor Porter is just a stereotypical bumbling idiot scientist despite Jeff Bennett's surprisingly good performance. Oh yeah, and Kala barely appears other than a cameo in the end! The characters introduced in the segments are all equally as one dimensional, with Eleanor (voiced by Edie Britt herself, Nicolette Sheridan) being the stern upper class English woman who learns to let her hair down, Greenly (voiced by Grey DeLisle) being the more eccentric one & Hazel (voiced by Tara Strong) just being the fat one who has a crush on Tarzan. That's about it with them other than all of them acting like proper ladies until Jane convinces them to stop when they have to escape from the panthers. Anyway, Johannes & Merkus in the second segment are entirely forgettable one dimensional villains with their only motivation being money. And Robert (voiced by Jeff Bennett for some reason putting on his Bradley Uppercrust III from An Extremely Goofy Movie voice) is the cliched childhood friend that is yet again obviously evil & stuck up. Oh yeah, and Nigel (voicing by Sandy Rivers himself, Alexis Denisof) is just a pilot that's a foil to Robert by being a good guy searching for him! Another massive problem I have is some characters from the TV show are introduced without any sort of context over who they are or what role they play for those who haven't seen the show, especially Renard Dumont as he only appears in the second segment to give Johannes & Merkus information over Tarzan & the cameos from Hugo & Hooft (who played a pretty big part in the show). As you can tell, the old characters are one dimensional while the new ones are no better & it's just painful.

Tarzan and Jane is yet another addition to bad Disney sequels & is probably the worst adaptation based on the Edgar Rice Burrough's novel next to the 2013 Tarzan 3D! With 3 episodes with no connection to the themes, really subpar animation & one dimensional characters old and new, I definitely wouldn't recommend this to fans of Disney's adaptation of Tarzan. Heck, even Tarzan 2 had more credibility despite having absolutely nothing to do with the first movie because of the admittedly decent animation & George Carlin's performance!
Story: 1/10
Animation: 2/10
Characters: 1/10
Overall: 1/10