The loincloth and fur-covered actors may spend much of “Tarzan” gliding through the air, buttressed by an array of harnesses, wires, and bungee cords. But with the exception of an eye-catching opening, Disney’s latest foray onto Broadway lands on the Richard Rodgers Theatre with all the artistic grace of George of the Jungle, Tarzan’s cartoon counterpart, slamming into that tree.

After aiming low and scoring big with its risk-free stage adaptation of “Beauty and the Beast” in 1994, Disney rolled the dice and hired visionary director Julie Taymor to rethink “The Lion King.” The result was a visually rapturous event that continues to dazzle kids and adults alike.

The overamplified, underimagined “Tarzan” awkwardly straddles these two approaches, aping the 1999 film while attempting to translate its gravity-flouting visual scheme for the stage. It largely fails on both counts, somehow managing to feel both bloated and anemic, despite director/designer Bob Crowley’s ambitious visual approach and a handful of actors determined to transcend the libretto’s tired monkey business.

Granted, Disney was working at a disadvantage this time. Unlike “Beauty and the Beast” or “The Lion King” (or the upcoming “Mary Poppins”), the film of “Tarzan” is a fairly bland effort. But Mr. Crowley, a superb set designer (“Carousel,” “The History Boys”), makes a rocky Broadway directing debut and, together with bookwriter David Henry Hwang, adds little to the film beyond an extra hour of uninspired Phil Collins tunes and energetic airborne sequences.

This latter contribution comes from “aerial designer” Pichon Baldinu, best known for the long-running off-Broadway experience De La Guarda. That enthralling production involved sweaty, bungee-cord-wearing performers soaring and ricocheting over the audience in a huge environmental space, and the hope clearly was that Mr. Baldinu could replicate that sort of zero-gravity thrill with “Tarzan.”

Working on a proscenium stage severely limits Mr. Baldinu’s options, however, with the audience’s airspace breached only by a few swings over the first few rows and a track that allows an actor to occasionally glide overhead. After someone swings out of a hidden pocket of Mr. Crowley’s vine-strewn, intensely green stage for the third or fourth (or 38th) time, one longs for the characters to touch down and start advancing the plot.

That plot, a by-the-numbers blend of chaste romance, cute animal antics, and self-realization, plays out in predictable fashion, with Mr. Hwang streamlining the film’s ending considerably and adding an extra bit of interspecies angst between Tarzan and his adoptive gorilla father, Kerchak (a game Shuler Hensley). (The young Tarzan is played by two boys who alternate in the role; a likable Daniel Manche took the stage at one recent press performance.)

The book is by far the darkest of the Disney musicals so far. The 10-minute opening sequence involves a shipwreck and the killing of Tarzan’s parents and a gorilla cub by a leopard. (This material, while putting the show beyond the emotional reach of many young children, does provide Mr. Crowley with some of his most dazzling imagery, including a gorgeous beach visual.) What little humor there is comes from Tarzan’s pal Terk (Chester Gregory II), a spiky-haired gorilla who offers dreary bits of wit like “How can he prefer hanging out with her? I mean, she can’t even hang!”

“She,” of course, is Jane (Jenn Gambatese), the proper English woman whose head is turned by the half-naked “savage” with the flowing locks. Even though she has been left high and dry by the material – her songs are among the show’s worst – Ms. Gambatese is overshadowed by newcomer Josh Strickland, whose biggest credit thus far had been a stint on television’s “American Idol.” Mr. Strickland looks the part, displays the requisite gymnastic skill, and conveys Tarzan’s innocence through a bright pop tenor voice that pinches only slightly in its lower registers.The romantic chemistry between the two leads is virtually nonexistent, but it doesn’t help that most of their physical contact is devoted to covertly clipping or unclipping one another’s outfits into the inevitable ropes and bungee cords.

Mr. Collins has augmented the film’s five songs, which range from mildly engaging (“Two Worlds”) to blandly bombastic (“Son of Man”), with nine new ones. With the exception of a pleasant love duet for Kerchak and Kala (the very talented Merle Dandridge, whose ringing alto and empathic presence salvage a number of scenes), these are considerably less impressive than his original batch, and Jane’s first song, in which she rattles off Latin genus and species names while actors in body stockings grope her, stands out as a low point.

Because of its enormously complicated physical production, with nearly every actor taking flight dozens of feet over the stage (and occasionally over the audience), Disney decided to develop the show during a lengthy preview process instead of refitting the show for an out-of-town engagement. Despite cutting ticket prices during this development stage – something that used to be standard procedure, by the way – early audiences have been attacking the production since the first preview.

Either these reports were way overboard or (more likely) the creative staff has done at least some of the work they needed to. And so “Tarzan” turns out not to be a predictable train wreck but rather a mediocre adaptation of a mediocre film, which has solved some but by no means all of the adaptation problems with an impressive cast and technical crew to put it over.

But is this what we’ve been reduced to? Hailing a Broadway musical for having a coherent plot and a handful of good performances, plus some cool stage effects? No matter how many harnessed actors take flight in the stage’s upper reaches, this production sees to it that their efforts remain dispiritingly earthbound.

Open run (226 W. 46th Street, between Broadway and Eighth Avenue, 212-307-4747).