Alongside Dracula and Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan has been the most adapted literary character of them all, but has the distinction of being, apart from the first couple of Johnny Weissmuller films (Tarzan the Ape Man (1932) and Tarzan and His Mate (1934)) and possibly Hugh Hudson’s atypical Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984), most have them have been fairly undistinguished, often, at best, just mediocre runarounds in the jungles. They all have an inherently fantastical quality, the idea that a young English man can be raised by and mimic the behaviour of apes. The Disney adaptation, written by Tab Murphy, Bob Tzudiker and Noni White and directed by Kevin Lima and Chris Buck unexpectedly turned out to be one of the better versions of the story. Of course, it takes liberties with Edgar Rice Burrough’s original story and character, but it sticks to the source closer than you might imagine and is a lot more fun than most “serious” adaptations.

In the 1880s, a British couple are shipwrecked off the coast of Africa along with their infant sone. They survive the ordeal and settle into their new home in a treehouse in the jungle canopy but are killed by the leopard Sabor. The baby survives and is found by Kala (voiced by Glenn Close), a gorilla who recently lost her son to Sabor and who, against the wishes of her “family” leader and mate, Kerchack (Lance Henriksen), adopts him and names him Tarzan The boy (Alex D. Linz) grows up fighting for his place among the young gorillas, becoming athletic and confident and learning to mimic the other animals, learning their languages. As an adult, he (now voiced by proves himself by killing Sabor but a spanner is about to be thrown into the works – a team of human explorers from England has arrived, led by Professor Archimedes Q. Porter (Nigel Hawthorne) and his daughter Jane (Minnie Driver) who are searching for gorillas to study. They’re accompanied by the hunter Clayton (the incomparable Brian Blessed who also provides Tarzan’s distinctive yell) who has other ideas about the apes. As Tarzan starts to fall in love with Jane, he’s torn between joining her world or staying with a protecting his vulnerable family.

Disney’s return to the jungle after their animation masterpiece The Jungle Book (1967) is a triumph. Despite the regulation issue talking animals and comedy sidekick, it’s a tad more serious than most recent Disneys. There’s plenty of child-friendly comedy here and big, crowd pleasing action, but there’s also death (one character accidentally hangs themselves), pain, destruction, all the things that Disney films have a reputation for avoiding. The relationship between Kala and the young Tarzan is genuinely touching , the big action set-pieces are outstanding (Tarzan versus the cheetah is particularly good and Tarzan and Jane’s flights through the jungle canopy on vines are exhilarating) and while it gets almost tiresome to keep pointing it out, the animation has advanced in leaps and bounds even since Mulan (1988), The junglescapes are gorgeous, the character designs distinctive and the movement fluid and never less than convincing.

The Jungle Book is explicitly referenced in a scene where the gorillas invade the human compound and stage an impromptu concert using the things they find there, a sequence not dissimilar to the exuberant King Louie sequence in the earlier film. But it’s a Disney film that has little interest in looking back at past glories, creating instead a very creditable adaptation of a much loved character that should please all but the most determined of Burroughs purists. Its ambitions are huge, and the team pull it off with real aplomb.

The voice cast are very good, Driver in particular in a scene-stealing turn as the plucky Jane, and the decision to have the humans and gorillas apparently talking in languages that the other don’t understand is well handled. The characters are sharply drawn, the performances spirited, and the cast manage to pull off the wild fantasy and the script’s deeper moments (the film has much to say about family, belonging and compassion). One might question just how dim Jane and her father are not to notice that Clayton is quite patently the villain of the piece – he’s stops just short of twirling a moustache – but it’s unlikely hat the kids would either notice or even care.

There are other flaws, the most serious of which are the songs by Phil Collins which find the former Genesis drummer and frontman at his blandest and most middle of the road. By 1999, Collins (whose daughter Lilly, then just ten years old, provided the voice for the baby ape in the troupe) was past his 80s prime, out of Genesis and touring with the far less commercial Phil Collins Big Band. The song You’ll be in My Heart was released as a single and reached number one on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart. If that wasn’t inexplicable enough for a song that’s instantly forgettable, how on earth are we to get our heads around the fact that it was not only nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Song but actually won…?

But the iffy songs aren’t enough to detract away from a terrific film that comfortably sits in the top echelon of the Disney animations. It was another box office bonanza for Disney, opening at number one at the box office, comfortably beating Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999) and coming second only to another African set adventure, The Lion King (1994) in terms of opening weekends for the company. You know the drill by now – Disney have a hit and there are inevitable follow ups. A television series, The Legend of Tarzan, ran for 39 episodes over two seasons between 2001 and 2003, and there were two direct-to-DVD sequels made by the television arm of the studio, Tarzan & Jane in 2002 and the confusingly titled Tarzan II in 2005. There was a Broadway musical version though has of 2023 no sign of a live action remake, that prospect having probably been scuppered by the German/American CG animated adaptation Tarzan (2013) by Reinhard Klooss and David Yates’ live-action The Legend of Tarzan (2016). Neither were a patch on the Disney version.