The Legend of Tarzan

Someone might enjoy all the pulp as a guilty pleasure, but I found The Legend of Tarzan more and more annoying with every passing minute, despite its very promising start. Jon Favreau’s The Jungle Book is the clear winner here. (07/03/2016)

At first I was surprised with the story itself. The thing is that the film does not offer the classical view of Tarzan’s life in the jungle, but it starts at a moment when Tarzan is already a cultivated and respectable English subject with an aristocratic past and the manners or a true elderly gentleman. The beginning seems really good and it is really entertaining. But after about half an hour, Tarzan sets off on a journey to his original homeland. There is a plot twist and the story goes back to its beginning. So once again Tarzan is flying around on endless lianas – a liana in one hand, the beautiful Jane in the other – and he’s fighting against British colonists. At that point, the excitement starts to wane and unfortunately it doesn’t get better again. It’s fine, but this movie doesn’t deserve more than three stars to be swung towards it on a liana. (12/15/2017)

Animals versus colonialism or the Swedish model makes Africa great again. When the creators are already pushing so hard on the racial and colonial aspect, the character of the scattered and theatrically very faint Aryan is very interesting, by which I do not want to suggest that anything from The Legend of Tarzan deserves to be taken seriously. Attempts at moralizing are as rigid as trying to tell two stories at once (both the "origin" and the new storyline drag on). Christopher Waltz could send his less talented double to the set to play the villainous roles, and David Yates confirms that he is a boring director, especially when the screenwriters don't give him brisk dialogues. Plus, it sometimes looks like some of the shots disappeared, so Samuel L. Jackson fires like a rich Texan. I can also forget that the film opens a meaningless amount of storylines and tells them very roughly, and sometimes not at all. Favreau didn't try a tenth of the "serious overlaps" in The Jungle Book, yet his film looks ten times more mature than this CGI nonsense. One then notices with fascination all the bullshit, such as the fact that a man living his whole life among gorillas is shaved like a real Dandy. Well, the nobleman's son won’t be denied. (01/21/2017)

The beating heart, wide open eyes, and dancing soul of a former ten-year-old geek who has read everything that could be found about the ubiquitous man from the apes family. You don't forget your childhood loves even two decades later, and David Yates knows how to tell stories about heroes, villains, love, and friendship in such a fresh yet old-fashioned way that I have no defense. Alexander Skarsgård was born for the role of John Clayton, and when Margot Robbie for the first time in her career isn't annoying me, I am most excited after some slight hesitation. The power of the story and its message outweigh any quiet objections about minor physical flaws. I would take a sequel immediately, and even though the creators surprisingly quickly exhausted one storyline (Opar), I have dozens of directions in my head to explore. (07/09/2016)

I would easily call the very beginning of the film brilliant. You tell yourself that this wouldn't be just any movie. But then the genius just disappears. And then it reappears in maybe two or three scenes. So there are as many scenes that are very good as there are scenes where you want to burst out laughing at the ineptitude. Aside from the sometimes rather trite script, the biggest weakness is Tarzan himself. I don't know if it was a poor choice of actor or if he was just written that oddly, but I wasn't impressed at all. I get it, he was raised by animals and had to behave differently, but this just wasn't it. So muscles... fine, he had them. But charisma? None. Too bad. On the other hand, the best thing about the whole movie, from my point of view, was the charming Margot. She had an interestingly written character and she could sell it. Otherwise, I'd recommend The Jungle Book, which came out at almost the same time. That one is much more sophisticated and catchy. 3 stars. (07/24/2016)

That was bullshit. The plot doesn't make any sense, the effects are lousy in places, and the weird slow-motion spoils all the action. Tarzan comes across as bland to the point of being unlikeable, but it's not so much Alexander Skarsgård's fault as it is David Yates' dull direction that trips him up. The weird tree-running is eye-poppingly digital, as are the animals, and unfortunately not even Margot Robbie, who quite illogically spends her days in the Congo wearing a dress that doesn't even shine in the water, can save the day. Christoph Waltz as the villain is incredibly dull. I'm afraid Tarzan will be off the market for a long time. (02/10/2024)

A lovely single summertime watch. The chemistry between Skarsgård and Robbie works, with Jackson and Waltz complementing them in their classic acting positions. It was a very good choice to retell not the origin, but the return of Tarzan to Africa. I’m satisfied with it (although I've never really gotten into any Tarzan, including the statuesque Lex Barker). Lambert's best Tarzan to date has a good successor. (07/26/2016)

True, it is not a revolutionary adventure, but I do not think it deserves such harsh criticism. The film is spoiled mainly by the fact that the filmmakers once again didn't know the level and needed to film, for example, jumping on a train or the finale with a herd of digital animals... But they probably didn't even think that more than such unnecessary and not very well done scenes, the viewer would be interested in at least a somewhat thrilling final duel of man against man, during which we could worry just a little bit about the main character or his damsel in distress. Oh well. At least the first hour was pretty good to watch, the wooden Tarzan was actually likable, Samuel L. Jackson amused me here and there, and Gregson-Williams' music was a pleasant surprise. (12/30/2016)

Despite the fact that some of the motifs are probably taken from various sequels to the original book, the plot of the film seems desperately pulled out of someone’s ass and the film looks as if none of the creators knew what they were doing. It is as if the film was gradually shot by three directors with different visions, or as if director David Yates wanted to shoot it in three different ways at once. The resulting mishmash is a combination of Tarzan, a romantically veiled red library in the style of Out of Africa and an adventure reminiscent of Indiana Jones. At the same time, the film lacks tension, well-filmed action, humor and fun. On the other hand, there is no lack of bad editing and the digital tricks have a fluctuating quality. The actors are either poorly cast, play below their abilities, or both. The last rescue of the creators would be for them to argue that they tried to reproduce the naive trashy atmosphere of the adventure novels of the 1920s and 1930s, which would explain a lot. But even so, that would amount to a rather weak apology. (07/19/2016)

Right at the beginning, it would be good to compare this film with The Jungle Book, which also arrived in cinemas this year and I have to agree with most of the users, because I also liked the story of Mowgli and his animal friends more than The Legend of Tarzan. David Yates' film isn't downright bad, but I was probably expecting a slightly better built story and more use of the characters, especially Christoph Waltz, whose villains are top notch. Alexander Skarsgård was more suited to his role in True Blood, Margot Robbie was kind bland, and Samuel L. Jackson's involvement was obviously meant to cater for some of the humour (which, thankfully, it did). It wasn't a bad film from a technical standpoint, but compared to The Jungle Book it's more of a poorer sibling. In short, a film that while offering beautiful scenery of African nature, its stumbling block is its weaker story and especially its untapped potential. (07/16/2016)

I thought it was going to be pretty awful, but it ended up being pretty good. Not that I particularly fancy this version of Tarzan, and I don't like Margot at all. But Africa looks beautiful here, Samuel has another memorable role, digitally it's appealing, and there are a lot of animals here that like to attack. It's beautifully far-fetched in places. (03/27/2017)