Since the dawn of cinema, “Tarzan” has been a prototype to the superhero formula and one of the earliest adaptations of a character from a book.
“Tarzan” was created by Edgar Rice Burroughs in 1912. The character sprung from the pages of those old pulp magazines and he was an instant hit and became an all-american classic; Although, there were some criticisms that came from, you’re not gonna believe it, Rudyard Kipling himself.
The story of “Tarzan” has been adapted into several films and some of them haven’t been the best films exactly of the Man of the apes. My favorite film based on “Tarzan” is: “Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes”.
We’ll talk about that after we talk about the new film: “The Legend of Tarzan”.
“The Legend of Tarzan” takes place after almost 10 years of both “Tarzan” and “Jane” leaving the jungle to live in London. “Tarzan” has become the Earl of Greystoke and he is thrown into a shady deed by Captain Léon Rom; However, John now has to cope with the fact that Jane has been taken by his actions and now he must rescue her, while also letting in his wild side.
I was waiting for this movie. I’m a big fan of the original book, the Disney film, the 1984 film, and this film looked to be among those great films based on the legend; But, it didn’t quite hit me as hard as I thought it would.
Truth be told, I thought the film would give me more chills than what it gave to me while watching it during those action scenes involving “Tarzan” fighting the “Mangani” and other of the villain/heroes of the film.
The pace of the film feels quite sluggish and somehow feels rushed as what I expected was to develop how “Tarzan” interacted with his surroundings in London and how his daily life was there with Jane. You know something in the vein of say “The Incredibles”, which for me keeps a great transition from that Hero that was “Mr. Incredible” to how he then became his daily form of “Robert Parr”, to then become “Mr. Incredible” again.
The editing was not that good and those transitions didn’t seem to flow that well. The film overall feels quick and that wasn’t a great sign when we got to the scene that involved “Tarzan” fighting against “Akut”.
The visual effects for the animals were something great and they did look great. One of the biggest highlights for me were the Elephants, in the “Jungle Book” movie the Elephants were made way too huge for the film and these Elephants were actually the right size when comparing them to actual humans. The Lions, Ostriches, Crocodiles, etc. looked amazing and kudos to the visual effects team for creating such real looking animals for this film.
The Jungle looked very alive and sometimes it did look like a set, but it was a very thin line between them.
Soundtrack-wise the film did average and I was quite expecting more heavy drumming to be featured in the movie since the drums for me make something feel even more wild and they made “Tarzan” feel even more alive in the 1999 Disney film. There are some track that are amazing and also there is an original song that is composed and sung by Hozier.
The acting was great and I give kudos to all of the cast. The villain was great as he was played by the amazing and crafty Christoph Waltz as he always plays characters that are kind of weak, but they become evil while showing their real side.
Samuel L. Jackson was also the other highlight of the film as he was the comic relief and had some bad-ass moments as he always does on his films.
As for the directing, it was great, yet it did had some weird choices for the cinematography of the film as there are some weird zooms and the camera did some weird movements while the characters were exchanging dialogue.
I praise this film for the fact that finally they include the term “Mangani” and they finally explain that they are the ones who cared for “Tarzan” as they were the tribe or species of apes that in size and characteristics are between a chimp and a gorilla. There are some scenes that are directly from the book and they were played differently and that did kind of bothered me a little bit, but they served their purpose for the film. The introduction of “Opar” wasn’t something that I was expecting and it was something that didn’t seem in place, as they put Chief “Mbonga” as the leader and in the original book he was a chief of a traveling tribe.
For my final comments: If you don’t know that much about the mythology that surround “Tarzan” and his many Jungle Adventures, then I recommend this film as a great time at the theater to evade the heat and to have a great time watching a regular summer film. As for the fans of the book, you’re gonna like it; But, it isn’t the film you were expecting for many reasons that are explained above and I hope it has a great run while it’s in cinemas worldwide.
El Rincón de Yayo 