The Legend of Tarzan Review

      

Tarzan is a classic hero in the staple of fiction, and various times the story has been told about the boy who got left behind in the jungle and lived with the animals to become the grown man Tarzan who was capable of great feats in the jungle that no ordinary man could envision. However, in The Legend of Tarzan directed by David Yates that story is flipped on its head. We are presented with the idea of a “Tarzan in retirement”. We meet a Tarzan who has adjusted to “civilized” life in London and is reluctant to return to his old ways. David Yates tells the story of a man named John Clayton (Alexander Skarsgard) who has left behind his life as Tarzan and has been asked by Belgian King Leopold to return to Africa to see what he has done to improve Africa. Of course, reluctant Clayton doesn’t want to, not till George Washington Williams (Samuel L. Jackson) asks Clayton to reconsider as he wishes to go and make sure Leopold isn’t setting up a goal of slavery in the nation. This prompts Clayton into action alongside his wife Jane (Margot Robbie) who he reluctantly allows to come with him. When they all arrive in Africa they find things are in trouble when Rom (Christoph Waltz) attacks the village they are at and kidnaps them. Clayton and Williams escape but without Jane. So the film dives into an adventure in which Clayton must rebecome Tarzan, save Jane, and stop Rom from carrying out his plan.

This story is told with a plethora of great talent. Not all of the cast though I feel is well-cast. The role of Tarzan for one played by Skarsgard isn’t particularly well-cast. Skarsgard is fine in the role but he isn’t great either. He doesn’t really capture an energy to the character that you would think would be present in a character like Tarzan. I think the actor would have been better suited to more of a supporting role, as what I can see from his acting range he just doesn’t seem like leading man material, at least not yet. The actress that portrays Jane, Margot Robbie does a terrific job though in bringing to life the character of a person who is in love with the wild man of the jungle Tarzan who has left behind his old ways and desperately wants to return to the old way and pushes her husband to that point. Robbie possesses a great charisma to her and that comes across well during the film. Every time she has an interaction with any of the characters the scene is the better for it due to her magnetic personality she brings to the screen. Samuel L. Jackson is a blockbuster talent and he really brings that to the film as George Washington Williams. The man may be getting up there in age, but it doesn’t show in this action adventure as he keeps up with the main characters. What Jackson does is bring a compelling performance to the film and delivers charisma at a crowd-pleasing level which he has demonstrated he is capable of doing numerous times over the years. Another weak link in the cast is Rom played by Christoph Waltz. Even though Waltz plays the character with a commanding presence, there really didn’t seem to be any clear or strong motivation clearly emphasized for his villainy and a lack of depth to his character overall. If Waltz had been given better material to work with perhaps the villain Rom, could have really shined.

Escapism is a major theme present during the story. Tarzan, now John Clayton at the beginning of the movie in London has gone back to that civilized way of doing things or more accurately for the first time embraced that way of life. On the other hand, these huge stakes with matters such as slavery at stake and a king looking to make a boatload of money off of a mining operation in Africa force the characters to return to the jungle and to adventure. In this way, escapism is brought in with Clayton’s husband Jane desperately wanting escapism from the dull ordinary life that London brings. George Washington Williams who wanted to stop potential slavery operations inherently wanted to do something bigger than himself and make a difference. Clayton though reluctant to return to the jungle I believe deep inside wanted to return, to escape from the ordinary life that he had established for himself and rediscover his true purpose. The film does have some pitfalls besides a couple of lacking performances and lack of character development that really hurt the overall execution. The story isn’t as cleanly laid out as it could with pacing hitting different beats sometimes. The writers could have fixed this by taking away some of the flashbacks and really focusing on the core conflict at hand. The action while entertaining many times included CGI, which didn’t look very realistic. This was a distraction and I would have much preferred an organically shot movie to what looked like putting all the actors in front of a plethora of green screens. Yet in the end, the biggest detriment to the plot is the central conflict, the villain which was lacking. Rom was mainly used as they guy who kidnapped the girl, shot at Tarzan, and so on without really going in depth and creating a compelling contrasting character to Tarzan to really ignite the story.

After all, is said and done, though, why does it matter? What message is this film sending? Do the interactions between the characters do anything to bring them especially to life to millions of viewers across the world? The Legend of Tarzan is certainly convoluted at times, lacking inconsistent pacing and character development across the board but does clearly deliver the message that escapism is a good matter, wether the audience sees that through the entertaining talent and sequences present in the film or the actual content of the the symbolism of the story that the audience themselves can transport themselves to another way of life, to another way of doing things, that they can truly find another purpose in their life, a chance for redefinition. I think that the core development of the characters and the interactions that it inspired throughout this film sometimes worked and other times didn’t. I don’t think that most people are really going to look at this entry of Tarzan and think of it as the one that really brought the wild man of the jungle that defies our civilized lifestyles to life but there is fun to be gleaned from the cinematic experience of the Legend of Tarzan from the characters to the action. Overall I believe The Legend of Tarzan is an ok film which is still exciting but fails to engage fully and lacks the stakes necessary for the characters to really come to life to the audience. I am assigning this film a score of 6.5/10.