A bit of an oddity, this: a few years ago I read through the original Burroughs novel and was eager to find out how this adaptation held up. The answer is that it follows the story in the book extremely closely – especially in the first half – depicting events with a kind of vicious believability that's miles away from the chest-beating, vine-swinging Tarzans of old.
It's not entirely accurate – there's far less of that grisly business involving the hostile tribesmen – but what I saw, I liked. The apes are played by men in pretty convincing suits, and watching Tarzan growing up to become lord of the jungle is a lot of fun. In addition to that, the film plays an ace in the casting of Ian Holm as the Belgian captain who 'civilises' Tarzan. Holm gives a subtle, mannered, quite excellent performance, one that's filled with emotion and is the best in the entire movie.
That's not to say that Christopher Lambert, as the title character, is bad. It's a memorable debut turn, carefully judged and entirely physical. He gets the movements and mannerisms of a jungle-born man just right, which is why it's a shame that the ridiculous decision was made to rub him over with animal noises. If he's angry, a lion's roar comes out of his mouth, etc. The filmmakers rely on such things a lot, especially in the second half, and it's a real shame.
That's not the only problem with the second half. Once the action shifts to England, the pacing slows right down and the film feels devoid of incident. Andie MacDowell is fairly uninteresting in playing an insipid Jane, and even a final, unexpectedly touching turn from Ralph Richardson fails to liven things up. As I remember, this part of the film deviates quite substantially from the book, and it suffers for it. Basically we get an hour of Tarzan wandering around his mansion and it's all rather depressing. It's a shame, because earlier on a great deal of effort was made to bring those jungle scenes to life, and it all fizzles out at the end.
