The Legend of Tarzan

The story of Tarzan has been known for decades, the movie tries to capitalize this in expectation that audience will follow its two timelines and many branching subplots. Unfortunately, the admittedly nice view is encumbered by myriad of issues, contrasting tones and shallow social and political showing. It becomes an overly familiar sighting that barely presents the characters above their stereotypical roles.

Tarzan or John (Alexander Skarsgård) returns to Africa after reclaiming his birthright, a conflicting homecoming as he deals with slavery and conspiracy. The story plays after the events of his origin, and the past is retold with several flashbacks. This different path is a welcomed change and surprisingly the little touch on these scenes are effective in setting his character. Alexander Skarsgård also looks the part for the brawny slightly beastly protagonist from his speech and mannerism.

The problem is Tarzan and both his foes and allies are entirely predictable. Christoph Waltz as Leon Rom is almost identical to his other villain roles, down to the creepy table exchanges and only differs in attires. Margot Robbie is the new Jane, an attempt for more spunky and powerful female, but she's trapped in usual pretty damsel in distress role, which ironically the movie points out hoping for the opposite effect.

Samuel L. Jackson performs as the sidekick William, also a vehicle for audience as he's new to the jungle. Expect the same charmingly brash Samuel here. Humor is relatively decent for light adventure, mainly In Samuel's expense, but the delivery is implemented in wrong way, thus it sometimes ruins the supposed intense atmosphere or just misses completely. It wants to have strong characters, social backdrop and occasional light comedy, although it throws them together, even in the same span of five minutes, more often than not it is not effective.

For the exotic location, it does showcase some good cinematography. However, it doesn't take off as the focus on CG affects the authenticity. When the movie gives an organic camera angle or rapid motion, it eventually turns in CG fest. There's attempt to mask this with flash editing, not only that it doesn't work this rustic camera cut negates any impact on the action scene.

A fairly nice trek muddled by disjointed narrative and clash in styles. With too much reliance in shallow gimmicks and abundance of CG, the beautiful scenery reverts back into bland predictable safari.

The core Tarzan story is not only iconic, it speaks to something deep within us. It is at the same time the ultimate Romance and the ultimate Action tale. It is no coincidence that, almost a century ago, when young Hollywood looked to find a franchise for its new "talkie" motion pictures, they turned to the Tarzan tale, and spawned a franchise so successful that it literally outlived the shelf life of its star.

In my lifetime I have seen well over a dozen versions, retellings and re-imaginings of the Tarzan story. I have no doubt that after I am gone, producers and writers will continue to be attracted to it and continue to "make their bones" by bending it to their unique style.

That said, this one is not especially good. After a great opening scene, there is the filmic equivalent of "dead air" for about 35 minutes and when the script does finally get in gear it stumbles and falls, subject to a wildly disjointed narrative and equally bizarre editing.

Alexander Skarsgård has been impressive in other films (a race driver, a superhero) and I think with different material and a different director he could have connected. Christoph Waltz and Sam Jackson remain two of the most over-exposed stars in Hollywood and, good as they are, they are running out of clever ways to play the same character over and over. And over. And over.

I recently read (or re-read) about twenty of the original Tarzan books. I always wondered why we never saw a Tarzan movie that portrayed the character as he was written in the books.

In the books, the adult Tarzan was very well educated and spoke several languages, but in the movies he hardly knew any English and rarely spoke in complete sentences. In The Legend of Tarzan, Alexander Skarsgård plays the character much like I imagined him when I read the books. Tarzan's command of language is competent, and his interaction with other people is never awkward or stilted as it had been in earlier movies.

Some changes from the books that The Legend of Tarzan makes is the way Tarzan communicates with animals. Instead of using words (as in the books), Tarzan can read an elephant's eyes, and he calls crocodiles by mimicking a mating call. Another change is the removal of many of the more racist elements the books had in the depiction of African tribesmen, and they are not missed at all. One other element missing from the books is the science fiction or supernatural slant that several of the stories had. The Tarzan stories that had those elements were never my favorite ones anyway, so I don't mind that they are absent from this movie.

One aspect of Jane's character that was often ignored in the earlier Tarzan movies, is that Jane lived in the USA before she married Tarzan. Earlier movie Janes were often given a British accent and occasionally had a pampered upbringing. It was refreshing to see Margot Robbie's take on the character. This Jane is American, and is feistier than we usually see her.

Christoph Waltz and Samuel L. Jackson looked like they had a lot of fun in their roles. I enjoyed watching them, but it sort of seemed like they were there as "stunt" casting - nice but unnecessary. They were each good, but every time they appeared on the screen, I never really saw the characters they were playing, I saw the actors.

Overall, I liked the movie. At times it was a little more "epic" than it needed to be, but I guess that just added to the fun. Of all the film versions of Tarzan I have seen, this one is my favorite. I think anyone who enjoyed the books would most likely agree that this is the closest to the book character of Tarzan that we have ever seen.

I am really surprised at the mediocre reviews so far of this film. Honestly when I first heard about the film I had little interest in seeing it, but the trailer was better than I expected, and when has Christoph Waltz been anything short of terrific in every role he has played, but particularly when he is a bad guy. (Come to think of it has he ever been a good guy?) The whole cast is solid, and I really liked the historical setting concerning the Belgian King Leopold and his exploitation of the Congo.

I found all the animals and the CGI to be surprisingly cheesy. Undoubtedly the weakest link in the film, but that factor did not subtract much from a constantly entertaining and solid story. Besides the cheesy CGI the rest of the film looked terrific. I would recommend to see it on the big screen. It will probably lose a lot on smaller screens. Good summer popcorn film.

This film tells the story of an English aristocratic son who is raised by animals in the forests of Congo. He grows up and goes back to England, only to go back to Africa to help the people who are getting enslaved by the Belgian king.

"The Legend of Tarzan" is so much better than the trailer. It has very little scenes of Tarzan growing up in the wild, and concentrates on his civilised adult life. He maintains a deep connection with the nature and the animals, which is a beautiful message that can be translated to everyone being friendlier to the environment. The story is engaging and at the end beautifully poignant. The two leads Alexander Skarsgard and Margot Robbie are both very visually pleasing, which adds to the charm of the film. I enjoyed it.