Honestly, that is all you will find if you read some of the other reviews of this version of Tarzan. People decrying the fact that it isn't like the (fill in Tarzan version of your choice depending on your age) and how it has ruined their childhood...

Seriously, some adults shouldn't be writing reviews of kid's films.

This version of Tarzan is bright and simple as far as the animation goes. The plot, I admit, had me scratching my head at the start until I saw where they were going with it. However, putting aside the fact that it is nothing like the Disney version, the Weismuller movies, the books, the Lou Scheimer cartoon series or any other version of Tarzan you care to prefer, is it any good? To be truthful, it isn't bad. Certainly nowhere near as bad as some would make it out to be. It needs to be remembered that this isn't aimed at adults. The bright, overly coloured backgrounds should be your first clue here that it is aimed squarely at kids, and youngish ones, at that.

Whilst the slightly scifi premise that sets up the plot is a little surprising, let us not forget that the original author (Burroughs) was not exactly fond of gritty realism. His works contain all manner of scifi goodness and the one comment I did laugh at was the one that bemoaned the presence of monsters and dinosaurs in this movie. Clearly these people haven't read a single Tarzan novel, which is replete with every conceivable monster Burroughs could think of. Try reading Tarzan the Terrible, for instance, before commenting.

In any event, this version of Tarzan, whilst not overly engrossing for me as an adult, was not boring. It was actually a nice little change.

So... was there anything wrong with it? Sure. The human faces aren't really that good. Also, I think the Tarzan/Jane romance subplot was a little ham-fisted, despite it being a staple of the Tarzan franchise. Again, with the Tarzan and Jane thing, I think that it was a little over the top as far as the target audience was concerned. Little kids would no doubt find it boring.

One other thing to consider is that this was a German production, not a Hollywood one. There are complaints that it isn't anything like the Disney version, but I say that is a good thing. Tarzan, as a franchise, has been around a long, long time. Endlessly rehashing the same territory is just plain boring and insulting, so maybe something a little different, not done by Hollywood, shouldn't be shouted down so much. Otherwise we end up with scene for scene remakes such as True Grit, and only a crazy man would want that.

Finally, remember it is made for kids, not adults. There really isn't anything much here for adults to get involved with. Summon up your inner child and try to enjoy it for what it is, not what you'd like it to be.

SUMMARY: Decent enough version of the classic aimed squarely at kids. Put aside your own Tarzan memories and enjoy it for what it is. A lot better than the ratings would suggest.

Tarzan is yet another version of this very familiar character. Aside from, perhaps, Sherlock Holmes, he must be the most all-time popular fictional character when it comes to movies. They've made a zillion live action versions as well as the Disney cartoon. However, now a German company has created a CGI version and it's appearing in theaters.

It begins with a gorgeous outer space scene showing a giant meteor heading to Earth. However, this is the Earth of millions of years ago, and you see lots of dinosaurs milling about…and you wonder if perhaps this is NOT Tarzan! However, it's only the prologue and some of this (especially the meteor) comes into the story much later.

Much of the film is typical of any Tarzan film. A boy is in the jungle with his parents, they die, he's then raised by gorillas. And, when Jane arrives, again, it's all pretty typical of the Tarzan films. The big difference is the evil corporation angle. A jerk named Clayton is intent on finding some giant meteor (the same one from the beginning of the film) and he's willing to kill Jane, her father, Tarzan and all the cute animals in the film. He's a pretty typical film baddie but the corporate angle is a cliché we've seen a lot in recent years. Aside from the evil corporation, the film is a fairly typical retelling of the story.

So is it any good? Well, the story and voice acting are nice. But the film suffers when it comes to the animation. One of the most difficult things to get right with computer generated animation is a realistic human. Sure, cartoony and exaggerated ones are not difficult to make but trying to make a real looking person is tough—and because of that, filmmakers have only recent been trying to make people who look like people. But, all too often these characters come off looking a bit creepy, as the CGI quality is getting a lot better overall but it's still not exactly right with humans. Because this is a commonly understood problem, I am VERY surprised that the German filmmakers who made Tarzan even attempted to make a hyper-realistic computer animated film about this Edgar Rice Burroughs character. And, in hindsight, I don't think this was a great idea, as too often the people in the film just look vaguely creepy. The effect is made worse by the sad fact that the CGI simply isn't close to the quality being made by Pixar, Dreamworks, Fox or Universal. It really has a look like it was made a decade ago—and the film's graphics vary tremendously. The people, leopard and movement of a jeep in the jungle look downright primitive, though some scenes, like the waterfalls and chameleon, look great. It's a real shame, as I am sure it took a lot of work by a lot of people to make this film but the graphics simply aren't up to even a typical made for DVD release—yet this has been released in 3D for the theaters.

So, what you have here is a poorly animated but otherwise reasonably entertaining film. I do not strongly recommend it, but you could do worse as far as family films go. But, it probably will bore young kids and older ones will probably just sit there and make comments about the sub-par animation. It's probably one more to rent than to own or take your kids to see in the theater.

By the way, it probably was just the problem with the copy I had, but the sound quality was pretty poor—very tinny. But, as I said, I doubt if this is what it will sound like in the theaters. And, in fact, the soundtrack itself is probably the strongest thing about this film—even with sound issues.

While adaptations of the stories of Edgar Rice Burroughs' hero vary in quality, most of them are very entertaining on their own terms. 'Tarzan' fares the weakest quite easily of the lot, there is very little if any Edgar Rice Burroughs in sight but worse is how poorly it fares as a standalone.

'Tarzan' is not completely irredeemable. The jungle itself is rendered very handsomely with nice vivid colours, while the music score has the right balance of spirit-rousing energy and whimsy (not so sure about the songs though which seemed like they belonged somewhere else). While the acting was not good at all, Andy Wareham does provide some effectively gruff menace to Tublat in the very little he has to do, while the film finally comes to life in a climax that does have some legitimate tension and urgency.

However, the rest of the animation is poor. The characters just look stiff and like they were lifted out of a very low-budget PlayStation 2 game while their facial expressions were either forced (Jane) or lifeless (Tarzan). Very little better can be said about the performances sadly either, there has never been a blander or charisma-free Tarzan than the one of Kellan Lutz, while Trevor St John goes through the motions as the one-dimensional and quite pantomimic Clayton.

On the other side of the acting spectrum, there is also Craig Garner's irritatingly whiny younger Tarzan, Spencer Locke's gratingly contrived Jane and Les Bubb over-compensates amateurishly and mugs as Jim Porter. The dialogue is embarrassingly clunky and nearly always sounds awkward, and there was really no need whatsoever for the over-used and over-explanatory narration, which was a classic case of more show, less tell, telling us what we can already see on screen and it got annoying fast.

Storytelling was a mess, with a particularly ponderous first hour, an underdeveloped and chemistry-less romance between Tarzan and Jane (an enormous problem when it takes up so much of the film) and the whole convoluted and out-of-place nonsense with the meteorite subplot. It honestly felt like a short film stretched and bloated to suit feature length, and even the gorillas and jungle wildlife felt thrown in and randomly inserted. The characters are little more than vapidly written, one-dimensional and annoying stereotypes.

All in all, less than inspired, or even good. Has even less swing than 2016's 'The Legend of Tarzan'. 3/10 Bethany Cox