Quote:
Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs  The Legend of Tarzan (2016) |
When my brother was visiting at Christmas, he had a voucher for a free film on Mubi or something similar, and we chose
The Legend of Tarzan, both knowing very little about it because it didn't appear to have been shown in any cinemas nearby and with almost no publicity or reviews of note, had almost disappeared without trace. This was weird considering the cast and crew involved, not to mention the reinvention of one of cinema's most famous and endearing characters.
I thought it was a rollicking adventure with, as you said, superb CGI and immersive action sequences. Alexander Skarsgård was very convincing in the title role, Christopher Waltz wonderfully typecast as the cartoonish villain, Samuel L. Jackson trying not to veer into
Snakes on a Plane territory and the phone his performance in. There is a fascinating subtext about the evils of colonialism, but not something which is overplayed so you feel as if you are being lectured at and can just enjoy the fantasy escapism. Although there are some bits where the pace drops a bit too much, I thought this was compensated by the way the screenplay made the Tarzan's character's 'make sense', being both refined aristocrat and king of the jungle (the explanation early on about the skeletal development was clever).
It's not perfect, but was more than passable entertainment – I think I scored it 7/10.