"The Legend of Tarzan" review

Welcome to the CGI sound stage jungle.

Cobbling together a setting using inspiration from the original Edgar Rice Burroughs serials and their multitude of media adaptations across the property’s 104 year history, “The Legend of Tarzan” goes refreshingly against the grain of modern cinematic reimaginings of classical icons of fiction. At least, it does so conceptually.

Tarzan, having settled down in Britain with his wife Jane and claiming his title as Lord Greystoke, returns to Africa at the request of American envoy George Washington Williams to investigate suspicions of Belgium using resource mining operations as a cover for dealing in local slave trade.

While the age of Hollywood superheroism continues to hold strong and has granted comic books something of a second life for the modern day beyond the niche they’ve fallen into in recent decades, discussions of hero fatigue in the genres most popular form continue to persist and not necessarily without justification.

If for no other reason than to add variety to the landscape, the idea of revisiting older literary adventure characters, themselves the precursors to the space that superheroes would later occupy, makes a lot of sense and is loaded with storytelling possibilities that can unite fans of old with those newly recruited.

When done right, we can get something like Guy Ritchie’s “Sherlock Holmes” (the first one at least), reverent of the source material’s mythology and celebratory of aspects both popular and obscure to create a unique but faithful vision of the series to give it a new life for a new generation. Done wrong however, you can end up with something like “John Carter,” adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ other pulp sci-fi/fantasy classic, more in love with pushing trends of its own agenda and lacking confidence in its own material to create a 2 hour derivative pedestrian bore.

Director David Yates comes at “The Legend of Tarzan” with all of the heart, pure intention and sincerity of the former but sadly ends up in unfortunately unimpressive and fated money losing destination of the latter.

This is a film with a major identity crisis, unsure of whether to embrace elements that have defined Tarzan back at the height of his popularity or play it safe and conservatively by leaning on the audience’s knowledge of the property via pop culture osmosis. That’s not to say that reservations regarding said material aren’t irrational.

Originating from a less enlightened era regarding racial and cultural sensitivity, much less the very anthropological history of Africa in general, there’s plenty of imagery, ideology, and concepts associated with “Tarzan” that frankly just can’t be modernized. That isn’t to say the property can’t be revisited well; it just requires a little bit more finesse than other franchises.

The tact sadly chosen by “The Legend of Tarzan” however plays things down the middle, resulting in a narrative that is inviting but not enthralling for a character that never grasps the presence and scale consistently implied of him.

Ignoring the origin as part of the plot for a progressive character study would have been a bold concept were flashbacks of it along with the characters previous adventures not interspersed between the film like visual footnote citations that break the flow of the existing story and are ultimately redundant.

Alexander Skarsgård's take on the titular Ape Man wasn’t a bad idea in theory except that the script is harangues with issues of identity crisis regarding his wild background and newly civilized lifestyle that are poorly established and never seem to particularly resolve themselves. He isn’t aided either by his supporting cast, consisting of Christoph Waltz, whose villainous role is so bare bones that he’s left to practically flounder onscreen playing a parody of himself, Margot Robbie as his wife, with whom she completely lacks chemistry and never even seems to be fully aware of who her character is even supposed to be, and the criminally underutilized Djimon Hounsou, whom manages to be more of a three dimensional character than even the main protagonist despite being written and a second tier obstacle at best.

Just about the only actor that comes out on top in this one is Sam Jackson’s George Williams. Despite the problematic utilization of his character being a real world historical figure, his charisma and portrayal as a comic relief that isn’t only competent but in some ways less of a load than some of the characters explicitly stated to be adventure veterans wins out.

Ignore that he has a real life counterpart in name only and it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to buy that he was a character ripped straight from the pages of Burroughs’ original serials.

Unfortunately he can’t save the limp and murky narrative of the film overall, which only serves to draw attention to how much of a mess the film is from a production stand point. The CGI of this film would have been laughable five years ago but in the same year as the similarly budgeted “The Jungle Book,” it’s downright cringe inducing to see a complete breakdown of story, special effects, and cinematography lump itself together in single instances that never come even close to achieving the majesty that they so desperately want to deliver upon.

“The Legend of Tarzan” makes an admirable effort to pitch a fresh take on an outdated character for the modern age and its clearly noble intentions are almost infectious. Although the movie is bad, it’s not through failing to give an A worthy effort but simply due to a project that feels produced by loving artists but ultimately manufactured by studio executives.

The final result of the endeavor however is still a bad movie.

   

4 Lost Jungle Civilizations out of 10