La leyenda de Tarzán

I've been a Tarzan fan for pretty much my whole life when I read my mom's copy of Tarzan and the Madman. Watching the Jonny Weissmuller movies as a kid and the Ron Ely series later and owning all of the Burroughs books doesn't make me an expert, just a great fan. I don't believe there's even one Tarzan movie that I haven't seen, the Jock Mahoney, Mike Henry, Bo Derek and the Elmo Lincoln silent film versions included, I have no idea how I missed this in theaters. Having said all that, I think they did a remarkable job on this film. Instead of (like most Tarzan films) starting the movie with a background story this began with Lord Greystoke (John Clayton) already in London. The background was covered in flashbacks as the movie went on. The story itself is very good. Samuel Jackson did an excellent job with his character and had one scene where I was nearly falling off my couch with laughter. Christoph Waltz as always does a fine job as well as Margot Robbie and Alexander Skarsgard as Tarzan. Overall I really recommend it for Tarzan fans, I think you'll enjoy it.

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

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.

The story of Tarzan is so ingrained into the brains of moviegoers that it's difficult to really put a new stamp or add something fresh to something so well-known. While Legend of Tarzan certainly attempts to take a new approach structurally, it never swings off the screen as gracefully as I had hoped.

2016 has been a rough year for big budgeted films. So many bombs and duds overshadow some of the great ones we've had through the first half. This film isn't necessarily in either camp. It begins the second half of this year with a formidable installment in the long-running ape-man franchise. David Yates, director of the last four Harry Potter films, does absolutely nothing special with the characters of Tarzan and Jane, but I was nonetheless entertained by the film from beginning to end.

Alexander Skarsgård and Margot Robbie portray Tarzan and Jane respectively. Both give solid performances but neither brought anything new to the characters. It took me awhile to adapt to Skarsgård's more guarded portrayal. In fact, for a good portion of the first half, I found his performance to be quite stiff. Tarzan isn't supposed to be running around cracking jokes, but I would have liked to have seen a bit more lightness to him. Although Robbie is very good as Jane, she doesn't get a whole lot to do as she's tied up by the villainous Leon Rom (Christoph Waltz) for half the film. She's far from a damsel in distress, because she's definitely not helpless, but the plot constantly puts her in position to be a device or Tarzan's motivation to do something. I think Robbie could have done something special given the chance.

Undeniably good, however, is everything to do with the apes. I've seen the backstory before, but I loved watching his ever-changing relationship with his family of apes and the various flashbacks to what came before Tarzan's venture into home life in England. It's also where the film succeeds the most visually. While some animals, including a pretty bad ostrich, are weak on CGI, the apes are animated tremendously. The cinematography through the jungle and in the African mountains is quite beautiful. However, there are several moments of awful green screen footage. I'm talking cringe worthy background visuals.

Having said all this, I was definitely invested in the story they were telling. Tarzan is thrust into a choice to return home and chaos ensues when Leon Rom, a corrupt Belgian captain who tricked him into returning to the Congo in the first place. At times the tone blurs the lines from taking its source material too seriously and supplementing it with some weak dialogue with an average romance. I think that's the best way to describe most of the film, average.

I appreciate the filmmakers approach in taking the Tarzan story in a different direction in having it be about his return home and to his animalistic ways. But the best part about this film is Tarzan's relationship to his ape family and the background to that. I would have just liked to see more of that side of things rather than just bits and pieces here or there. Christoph Waltz was exactly what I needed out of a Tarzan villain and Samuel L. Jackson's humorous sidekick to Tarzan worked seamlessly. To me, there's plenty good here, but there was potential for greatness.

+Solid performances from the leads

+Samuel L added some much needed humor

+Apes Apes Apes

+Some visuals and fight scenes

-Others were too noticeably green screen

-Struggles to balance tone at times

-Needed more apes

7.4/10

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.