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"Director: Reinhard Klooss; Screenwriters: Reinhard Klooss, Jessica Postigo; Starring: Kellan Lutz, Spencer Locke, Les Bubb, Mark Deklin, Jaime Ray Newman, Trevor St John; Running time: 99 mins; Certificate: PG  Despite the seismic critical and commercial failure of Disney&amp;#039;s John Carter, Hollywood hasn&amp;#039;t been deterred from diving back into the Edgar Rice Burroughs literary archives for feature film material. Tarzan, an animated adventure arriving ahead of Warner Bros&amp;#039;s Alexander Skarsg\u00C3\u00A5rd-led blockbuster, will hope to fare better than the Mars-marooned Civil War veteran did in 2012. Heroes are in vogue on the big screen right now, whether they&amp;#039;re clad in superhero spandex or a loincloth - and Tarzan certainly has a sturdier cinematic history than John Carter, even if he did have to suffer through Phil Collins&amp;#039;s caterwauling. Fortunately this German-produced take on the story doesn&amp;#039;t have the ex-Genesis man to contend with, but it does suffer from a thrifty corner-cutting budget that means its execution doesn&amp;#039;t quite match its ambitious story. In truth, this pales in comparison with Disney&amp;#039;s 1999 version, but director Reinhard Klooss and Jessica Postigo&amp;#039;s script niftily updates Burroughs&amp;#039;s iconic story for the modern day while making sure to retain the characters&amp;#039; touchstone moments.  Tarzan, known as &amp;#039;JJ&amp;#039; as a young boy, is the son of John and Alice Greystoke, a pair of wealthy energy entrepreneurs in search of the meteorite that wiped out the dinosaurs. Believing it to be a source of untapped power, they venture into the heart of the jungle but end up fatalities in a helicopter crash. JJ makes it out alive, and finds himself raised by apes and the nurturing mother figure Kala. The years roll by and he grows up into the vine-swinging hero we all know and love, but his past returns when Greystoke Energies&amp;#039; new duplicitous CEO William Clayton arrives in the jungle seeking to claim the power source at all costs.  Those who&amp;#039;ve never seen any of the myriad Tarzan movies or read Burroughs&amp;#039;s stories (the audience this PG-rated feature is clearly targeting) will likely get a kick out of this snappily-told 3D incarnation.  Tarzan swings along at a brisk pace with Twilight alum Kellan Lutz gamely providing the voice and performance capture presence for the titular hero. Naturally, he&amp;#039;s the most well-defined character in the movie, his origin story providing the backbone for a series of escalating action beats and a surprisingly touching love story with Jane (Spencer Locke). There are moments of clumsiness here, though; brace yourselves for a cringey romantic montage backed by a Coldplay song. If the human cast members don&amp;#039;t fare particularly well - there are shades of the dead-eyed uncanny valley in most outside of Tarzan and Jane - then it&amp;#039;s made up for in the expressive apes that Tarzan calls family. Those who&amp;#039;ve never seen any of the myriad Tarzan movies or read Burroughs&amp;#039;s stories (the audience this PG-rated feature is clearly targeting) will likely get a kick out of this snappily-told 3D incarnation, even if it is hampered by a dreadful, exposition-heavy voiceover and sub-Pixar and DreamWorks visuals. This is more-than-passable family entertainment that&amp;#039;s mercifully free of Phil Collins.  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/review/a567373/tarzan-review-passable-entertainment-free-of-phil-collins/>