What it isn’t is much fun for anyone who’s seen Edgar Rice Burroughs’ ape man in any of his previous incarnations. While name recognition alone should snare a fair number of those who prefer their pulp heroes endowed with superpowers, between this and last year’s “Pan,” evidence suggests Warner Bros. The latter selling point doesn’t appear until nearly midway through the movie, until which point Adam Cozad and Craig Brewer’s script is concerned primarily with getting Tarzan back to Africa — a prospect his beloved Jane (a semi- empowered Margot Robbie) far prefers to days spent “hybridizing coconuts and playing ping pong.” While choppy, action- oriented flashbacks retrace the feral child’s formative years in the wild, it seems the one- time vine- swinger has grown up and re- gentrified in rainy old England, where he has traded his loincloth for a dapper pair of pants and assumed his identity as John Clayton III, fifth earl of Greystoke and member of the House of Lords. Covering his protagonist in scars (a superficial gesture toward realism), Yates has attempted to give us a more psychologically complex Tarzan — which is to say, he serves up a version of the character that shamelessly emulates the “why so serious” tone of Christopher Nolan’s brooding Batman movies. The main difference is the fact that everybody knows his secret identity, which makes it rather easy for the film’s villain, Capt. Leon Rom (Christoph Waltz, in yet another of his suave sociopath roles, just a few degrees removed from the well- mannered Nazi officer he played in “Inglourious Basterds”) to invent a pretext that will lure Tarzan to the Congo, where Rom plans to deliver him to vengeful tribal chief Mbonga (Djimon Hounsou) in exchange for the sought- after diamonds of Opar. Inadvertently helping to pull off Rom’s plan is another Tarantino regular, Samuel L. Jackson, who may as well be riffing on his score- settling “The Hateful Eight” character. Jackson plays George Washington Williams, a veteran of the American Civil War (and a real historical figure) who suspects that Belgian king Leopold II may be enslaving — or at least condoning the enslavement of — the natives of his colony in the Congo. Having fought to help end slavery in the United States, Williams has now set out to stanch the practice at its source, enlisting Tarzan (who, frankly, seems more interested in the fate of the gorilla family that raised him) to restore some sense of balance to the region. Williams makes an intriguing addition to the formula, as does the decision to peg this particular Tarzan adventure to the Congo, which isn’t necessarily the backdrop Burroughs had in mind. The historical figure on whom Rom is based was notoriously cruel to African natives — it was he who inspired the character of Col. Kurtz in “Heart of Darkness.” Dressed in white linen and armed with only a deadly rosary made from Madagascar spider silk, Rom gets the fate Hollywood feels he deserves, which includes a homophobic barb from Jane that flies right over the character’s head (“Sounds like you and your priest were really close”). The role of Tarzan is unique among Western heroes in that he requires virtually no acting ability (as bodybuilder Miles O’Keeffe and Calvin Klein model Travis Fimmel both demonstrated). And yet, with each subsequent screen appearance, the bar is raised on how perfect audiences expect the character’s wildly unnatural physique to be.
In that respect, Skarsg. Whenever Tarzan shares the screen with animals, however, the critters look appallingly digital — with human actors not even bothering to look in the right direction much of the time (consider the scene when Mbonga’s men are surrounded by gorillas, reacting as if to invisible ghosts). It’s a glaring problem, given all the attention Yates poured into crafting a believable context for what amounts to a glorified B movie. As a brand, Burroughs’ hero has always been schlocky, and no amount of psychological depth or physical perfection can render him otherwise — especially if the filmmakers can’t swing a convincing interaction between Tarzan and his animal allies. That dynamic — along with his full- throated yodel — has always been Tarzan’s trademark, but in this relatively lifeless incarnation, it simply doesn’t register. Reviewed at Warner Bros. MPAA Rating: PG- 1. Running time: 1. 10 MIN. Production. A Warner Bros. Pictures release and presentation, in association with Village Roadshow Pictures, Rat. Pac- Dune Entertainment, of a Jerry Weintraub, Riche/Ludwig, Beaglepug production. Produced by Weintraub, David Barron, Alan Riche, Tony Ludwig. Executive producers, Susan Ekins, Nikolas Korda, Keith Goldberg, Steven Mnuchin, David Yates, Mike Richardson, Bruce Berman. It has been years since the man once known as Tarzan (Alexander Skarsgård) left the jungles of Africa behind for a gentrified life as John Clayton III, Lord.The Legend of Tarzan is an American animated television series created by Walt Disney Television, based on the Tarzan character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
the Legend Of Tarzan
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