Genre: Action/ Adventure
Runtime: 110 minutes
Year: 2016
Starring: Alexander Skarsgård, Margot Robbie, Christoph Waltz, Samuel L. Jackson, Djimon Hounsou
Description: Tarzan (Alexander Skarsgård), having acclimated to life in London, is called back to his former home in the jungle to investigate the activities at a mining encampment.
Review: “The Legend of Tarzan” is the newest film directed by David Yates, whom we mostly know for his “Harry Potter” films. This is the first film since and before he returns to the wizard world with “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”. Can Yates make this other book series into a success? Personally, I wasn’t very excited about this film.
Leon Rom works for the Belgian king Leopold. In his name he is send to Africa to find valuable diamonds. Unfortunately for Rom, Mbonga, the leader of an African tribe isn’t, planning on handing these diamonds over to him. Mbonga does want to make a deal: when Rom can deliver him Tarzan, he is willing to give the diamons to him.
“The Legend of Tarzan” isn’t an origian story. We meet Tarzan when he has already left the jungle and leads a life in England as John Clayton, with his wife Jane. Under false pretenses, the couple is lured to Africa. They immediately fall into the trap of Rom, where Jane is abdicted and Tarzan has to save her.
There have been many movies about Tarzan, even a Disney film and a couple of tv shows. But in 2016 Africa isn’t as mysterious as it was a hundred years ago, when these stories were released. This somewhat old fashioned story of a man between wild animals, will it still speak to the audience? Yates tried to add a little more depth to the script, themes like slavery, colonization and racism. A brave try to make Tarzan a bit more political correct.
Although they tried to add more depth, “The Legend of Tarzan” is still a basic story about a damsell in distress waiting fort he hero toe save her. And although the action scenes are spectacular, there is only a handful of action sequences and it’s nothing that we haven’t seen before.
Alexander Skarsgård has the looks fort he role, but is missing the charisma to convince me. His cool, distant behaviour fit him perfectly as vampire in “True Blood”, but not so much as Tarzan. Margot Robbie gave her character a little bit more spice, but her role is a bit thankless. She can do more then this. Christoph Waltz plays the villain, but he is doing a routine job. Samuel L. Jackson is the best part of the film, although he only has the role of the sidekick.
“The Legend of Tarzan” isn’t a terrible film. The film starts off slow, but eventually does have some entertaining elements and is sometimes even funny. It’s a straight forward adventure film, a light film that won’t stay with you for very long. Overall “The Legend of Tarzan” is okay, but nothing special.
Rating: 2,5/ 5
