Legend of Tarzan

"The Legend of Tarzan" (2016) stars Alexander Skarsgårda as John Clayton (Tarzan), Margot Robbie as Jane and Samuel L. Jackson as Tarzan's American friend. The events take place a decade after Tarzan & Jane leave Africa for England with brief flashbacks to the ape man's origins. Christoph Waltz co-stars as the villain, Rom, who enslaves blacks in the Congo to mine the diamonds of Opar. Tarzan, Jane and Willliams (Jackson) aim to set things aright.

"Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes" (1984) was the best modern Tarzan movie, and one of my favorites despite a somewhat lethargic second half (and an irritating overuse of the "Ooo, ooo, ooo"ape vocalization, which this movie thankfully only does once). Unfortunately, they dropped the ball with the sequel, 1998's "Tarzan and the Lost City" with Casper Van Dien in the title role, as it was half-baked, a quickly-thrown-together "sequel" to presumably steal some of the thunder of Disney's animated version that was coming out the next year.

This one comes across as the true sequel to "Greystoke," albeit with an altogether different cast and understandably so, seeing as how it's 32 years later. The portrayal of the lost city of Opar is different from the books. There's no ravishing High Priestess La (a blonde white female) or ape-like denizens. The Oparians in the movie are just an intimidating black tribe covered with white body paint, but this is no big letdown because changes are to be expected when transferring to a different medium and, besides, Opar doesn't play that big of a role, at least not the city itself.

In any case, I found this to be a solid Tarzan flick with a serious adult tone mixing drama, jungle adventure and unbelievable action. I was thankful for the thoughtful lulls in the story, which shed insights on the characters or conveyed the wonders of nature, like when Tarzan communes with an elephant at night or when Williams honestly confesses about his past mistakes as a youth where he feels he's not so different from the odious Rom. Moreover, Margot expertly brings Jane to life and is easily one of the better Janes in the movies. The CGI animals are great, especially the powerhouse apes.

The film runs 1 hour, 50 minutes, and was shot, believe it or not, in England with aerial shots done in Gabon (West of the Congo).

GRADE: B.

Was not expecting it to be so good.

I did go into it thinking I did not want to see a movie about a white dude becoming King of an African Jungle, and I think the filmmakers themselves tried to be favorable of that opinion.

If you have any familiarity with Tarzan, especially movies that came before, this film acts as a continuation of that. It tells the origin of Tarzan, a boy lost in the jungle and raised by apes to become a ghost like figure, but this film more focus on the life after Tarzan left the jungle and joined civilization were his legend became the stories that Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote about.

Samuel L Jackson plays a doctor who needs Tarzan's help when Tarzan gets an invitation to come back to the Congo, the doctor needs to come with him to find out if slavery is being practice there, but it turns out the invitation was a trap laid out by the the villain, Rom, played by the brilliant Christoph Waltz in his element, to deliver Tarzan to an old enemy, also played brilliantly Djimon Hounsou.

Jackson's role in this keeps it from being some white dude who saves Africa from other white dudes. This is one of his better supporting roles as he was funny and dramatic when needed. The chemistry between Jackson and Alexander Skarsgård works like a charm.

I love Djimon Hounson character as an African Chief seeking vengeance with Tarzan's death. It was very Black Panther like (or more like Black Cheetah, as the costume design shows).

I like Margot Robbie as Jane as well. At first it seem they tried too hard to to make Jane not just the chick Tarzan saved, but as the movie went on and her character developed , she went on a small adventure herself that was as exciting as Tarzan.

It's an action packed adventure through the Congo. The visual effects worked to make the terrain beautiful and dangerous and epic.

It's also fun an exciting, it will have you laughing throughout all the action.

It still floors me how fantastic this thing turned out. Worth seeing

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.

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.

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.