The Legend of Tarzan review
Is this is my comeuppance for enjoying Independence Day: Resurgence? Has the great internet God detected an opinion that deviated slightly from the norm and sent this movie to me as punishment? Well, okay then. Legend of Tarzan is the movie absolutely no one asked for, but we’re getting anyway, because apparently Warner Bros hasn’t lost enough money this year from Batman V Superman and wants to lose more. It’s weird that ANYONE would decide to make a Tarzan movie in 2016, but the fact that this is clearly Warner Bros attempting to re-kindle interest in Tarzan and launch a cinematic universe or something is just confusing. Tarzan, like most turn of the century pulp sci-fi and fantasy properties, has a lot of inherent problems. In order for you to really understand the character and universe of the original books, you kinda have to recognize that it was created at a time where there were a lot of commonplace assumptions about things like “The Congo” and “The Jungle” that nowadays feel really awkward and racist. Thus, everything surrounding Tarzan, which was already pretty goofy, now has this extra layer of awkwardness to it that makes it really problematic to adapt in 2016. For example, it’s cool that since Tarzan was raised in the jungle he can talk to animals and has a lot of personal connections with them. BUT, it gets significantly less cool when you realize that the unspoken underlying reason HE’S been able to ascend to this godlike level of nature-whisperer, as apposed to the literal thousands of native Congolese who were born and raised in and around the same jungles… is because he’s white. And not only is he white, but the next in line of a wealthy English title-ship. Yeah…
Now, these problems can be worked around, or outright avoided, if you’re clever. Most version’s of Tarzan just prefer to tell Tarzan’s origin story; with him meeting Jane and discovering where he comes from and so on. As you can imagine, this has gotten really stale by now. Alternatively, you could just skirt around all the unpleasant racism by just leaning hard into the fantasy aspect of Tarzan. I think he ends up fighting dinosaurs in some adaptations, so why not do that? That’d be cool. My point is, just don’t decide to wade into all the awkwardness head-on and attempt to fix some of it like Legend of Tarzan does. The resulting movie is simultaneously probably the most accurate to the original feel of the books yet, and also a fabulously awkward and problematic movie that you should totally go see anyway just for the spectacle of it all.
(Spoilers from here on)
In this version,Tarzan, played by Alexander Skarsgard, has returned to England and become the Earl of Greystoke and a minor celebrity in England because God-help-us if this didn’t also have to become a super-hero movie on top of everything else. Samuel L. Jackson shows up as real-life Civil War veteran, minister, politician, lawyer, journalist and overall cool-dude George Washington Williams. Williams is serving as a U.S. envoy to Belgium because he suspects King Leopold II is doing some nasty slavery stuff by way of also real-life super bad guy Leon Rom, played by Christoph Waltz, and wants Tarzan to come with him and expose it. Yeah something that caught me completely off-guard, and which I actually didn’t realize until way after I’d seen the movie, is that Tarzan gets to bump around into real-life people in this version. Because that certainly won’t end up being INCREDIBLY problematic! While you’re at it just, make Williams Tarzan’s sidekick for the rest of the movie… oh yeah they actually end up doing that. Anyway, Tarzan, Jane (played by Margo Robbie), and Williams all go back to the Congo and get caught up in a plot by Rom to deliver Tarzan to an old enemy of his in exchange for diamonds and I AM SO SICK of summer blockbuster’s having entirely too much plot going on at once. It all plays out very awkwardly thanks to a bunch of flashbacks that are thrown in there seemingly just to ruin the pacing, and also some VERY poor editing and screenwriting that completely rob this movie of being remotely salvageable.
What’s weird is that there are definitely some positives I can take away from this movie. The cast assembled here is pretty great. Alexander Skarsgard is just about the most typically forgettable white lead this side of Sam Worthington or Jai Courtney, but he’s at least somewhat likable here and he’s clearly nailed the physique of the character. Samuel L. Jackson would actually probably be playing one of his absolute best roles here if the script didn’t keep forcing him into awkward comedy that ruins the tone of whatever scene he’s in. Margot Robbie is really proving herself to be one of the best actress’s of this generation, and manages to bring more charisma and likability to one of the most notoriously stereotypical roles in all Hollywood than Jennifer Lawrence has in 4 Hunger Games movies. She even manages to form a believable relationship with Skarsgard, until another awkward flashback appears and immediately transforms their relationship into something Twilight would smirk at. Christoph Waltz… Ugggh. I’m really depressed that both this movie and Specter have managed to completely waste Christoph Waltz’s incredible talents as an actor. I mean, from what I’m reading it seems like Leon Rom was a real nasty dude, but the screenplay is so stupid that it just washes down all his motivation to “I want money.” There’s even a weird moment where it’s implied that he was molested by a Catholic Priest, which I guess is timely but probably wouldn’t make much sense in the context of the 1800’s, that’s immediately just played for laughs and just comes across as incredibly insensitive. Yeesh. This all actually makes Independence Day: Resurgence sound a lot better by comparison. And I haven’t even talked about how boring the action is. It’s jump-cut heavy, has no sense of continuity in regards to placement of characters or objects, and there’s no sense of stakes to any of it because Tarzan’s somehow more invincible then Superman.
There’s a lot more I could go into like how bad the CGI is or how this movie abuses close-ups, but I think you get the point by now. Legend of Tarzan isn’t very good in any respect. I’d say it’s ultimately worth seeing just for kicks or if you happen to be a really big Tarzan fan or something. I mean the people who worked on this need to make a living SOMEHOW. I’m still confused that a relatively good director like David Yates turned out a movie this technically flawed, and the only thing more confusing then that is the fact that I saw this in theaters. I mean I’ve dodged a lot of really terrible movies this year but THIS ONE I saw? Weird. Everyone go see BFG instead, it’s great!
The Media Fire gives this movie 5/10
