The Legend of Tarzan review

Well I do love me a good B-movie and I do love me some pulp action stories come to life. The new Legend of Tarzan is pretty much that.

Pretty much.

Alright we are introduced to one Captain Leon Rom who is after the fabled diamonds of Opar. To get these all he has to do is deliver Tarzan to the tribal chief Mbonga. This guy either runs the Opar region or has control of the diamonds there or something. At the same time we are told how Belgium runs the Congo and are exploiting the crap out of it and enslaving the people there. This leads to Samuel Jackson to try and recruit one Lord Clayton III ,or Tarzan as everyone knows him, to go on a fact finding trip to the Congo to see about the slavery issues there. Well isn’t that timely since Leon Rom wants to kidnap Tarzan at the same time. This of course leads to the capture of Mrs. Tarzan/Jane and the inevitable action adventure to rescue her, save the region and stop the bad guy.

Well was The Legend of Tarzan any good then?

Yes and no.

The "Cat on my head!" bit from Brain Candy kept running thru my mind every time he was on screen.

The plot isn’t complex, but the whole most white people ruin everything and slavery is bad is very heavy handed. We all get it.

This is a lot of talking and various flashbacks before the action really kicks into gear. Like 2/3 of the film is talky and that felt like a lot for a movie that sure looked to be more action oriented in the previews. Well played you guys got me on that.

The C.G.I. here is iffy at times. I’m especially looking at you ostrich scene where you are behind Samuel Jackson. The animals look good, but at times the interaction with the actors looks bad. The gorillas have more facial amination than the actors in the film.

The flashbacks get a bit annoying when they happen, but at least they give the origin story of Tarzan and Jane the attention I guess audiences need. It was annoying but better than making it a full-fledged origin movie. Do people seriously not know who Tarzan is? Like we need a refresher that he was raised by apes and has near superhero abilities? I guess that answer is yes.

Christoph Waltz was a good bad guy, but that was  to be expected. Djimon Honsou was under used, (his role being about as big as in Guardians of the Galaxy)but at least had a descent story tacked onto him.  Samuel Jackson was pretty much the everyman and comic relief for the film. Jane/Margot Robbie was nowhere near the screaming damsel in distress that is always in these films. She was more of a sass mouth and plucky sidekick instead. Plus she is always easy on the eyes.

As for Tarzan/Lord Clayton III… well he felt like a version of jungle Batman with land based Aquaman powers. He was broody. He had dead parental issues. He was broody over gorilla family issues. Then you have the standard agility, speed, more than normal strength and ability to commune with animals. So yeah he was Batman with land Aquaman (Landman?) powers. Aside from the brooding Tarzan was everything I expected him to be. Plus what a side of beef too! Man that  Alexander Skarsgård is quite beefy as the vine swinging ape man.

The action sequences are fun. There is the vine swinging, animal wrangling, gun play and fisticuffs I was hoping for. I just would have liked more of it and sooner.

The big sweeping location shots looked pretty. The jungles be them woody or viney, the river cruise, mist covered Opar waterfall area, brush covered savanna: were all exactly what I wanted for scenery. Yeah it was all computer stuff and a set pieces, but damn it looked like what I expect from a 19^th century African adventure movie.

The big climax scene was wasted in the trailers along with a mild humorous, but predictable line from Tarzan. Hey movie guys! Stop showing everything in the trailers. It would have worked so much better if it hadn’t been shown previous.

All the African animals you expect are there (sans rhinos, zebras and hyenas). They all get a bit of screen time and remind you that this is still a Tarzan movie not just a history lesson with a shirtless dude in it. Plus the scene with the lions and Tarzan is totes adorbs.

Lion meet cute!

The big climax scene was wasted in the trailers along with a mild humorous, but predictable line from Tarzan. Hey movie guys! Stop showing everything in the trailers. It would have worked so much better if it hadn’t been shown previous.

By the end of the film was kind of just ok with everything in the film. For every bit of good there was an equal amount of meh!.

The Legend of Tarzan…it isn’t great, but isn’t terrible either. That is my tag line for the film.

I’m still waiting for a really good Tarzan, Doc Savage, The Phantom, or Solomon Kane movie.