We’ve all heard the stories; the myth; the legend.
But where is he now? What is he doing? Who has he become?
Will we ever really know Tarzan?
The Story
Now, for many of us, we’re aware of Tarzan through Disney. But the legend of Tarzan actually came from 20th century author, Edgar Rice Burroughs – heavily inspired by Kipling’s, The Jungle Book. Following closely to the original roots of the story, Village Roadshow Pictures decide to embellish their production with a dash of history between Belgium and the United Kingdom.
Now you guys know me, I have no issues with adding a bit of history to fiction, unfortunately the history enthusiast in me died a little while watching this film. Although I admire the writing team’s attempt to make Tarzan’s story relevant in some realistic way, I will say that they should have just stayed with the fictitious core and left the history for another movie (like, 12 Days A Slave or Amazing Grace). I also understand that there’s a need to move away from the animated film as well as giving audiences something new, but the attempt to mix reality with fiction just opened gaps that poor character development filled.
I said it with Charlie St. Cloud and I’ll say it now: You can have the best cast in the world, but if there’s no story there’s no point. In this case there’s no story, little character development and too much scenic and graphic compensation.
The Cast
NB: The poor storyline did not mean the film had bad acting.
Alexander Skarsgård was fantastic in bringing Burroughs’s original character to life. Though he had very little dialogue, his facial expressions and body language were enough to make him both endearing and fierce.
Similarly, Margot Robbie was great at portraying a ferocious and, at times, comedic Jane Porter. Returning to the original plot, the Aussie actress dons her superb American accent in order to make Jane both entertaining and admirable.
Christoph Waltz was also a very good villain. Text-book antagonist with no remorse. So nothing too difficult on his part, but well done nevertheless.
Samuel L. Jackson’s character was the most confusing character in the film. He’s not the typical sidekick either, he’s kid-of just…there. Not to say that SLJ wasn’t brilliant, I just think his character was out of place. When I say “out of place,” I mean he doesn’t sit well in either the historical attempt or the fictional homage; his just an additional character to be relevant. Other than not having a lisp, he might as well have played Valentine from Kingsman (suav, wise-ass Valentine, not psycho-wants-to-kill-the-world Valentine). He had, on the other hand, a great background story to relate with Tarzan, but nothing really important to the core story.
Overall… just hire it out. Thanks for the Vmax experience Event Cinemas, but I think you should just keep it playing on the regular-screens. It’s a good film for families with teens, but if you have little ones, just stick to Disney.
sL Star Rating: ★★
Next on sL: Suicide Squad