La leyenda de Tarzán

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.

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 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.

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.

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.