★★☆
In keeping with the steady onslaught of “Disney made it famous, we’ll make it big budget”, the powers that be have turned The Legend Of Tarzan into a full-length feature film, complete with real-life humans and not-so-real-life gorillas, elephants and a whole host of other African animals to substantiate that we’re in Congo circa 1890.
Opening with Phil Collins and the soundtrack that carried a generation, the film quickly establishes that any expectations of an intriguing plot and nuanced acting are misplaced. CGI can only be so layered, and ogling at Alexander Skarsgård’s ridiculously in shape torso can only allow for so much depth.
What is delivered in The Legend Of Tarzan is a good old-fashioned romp about the forests of Congo, led by that beautiful Swedish Tarzan and flanked by a gorgeous Aussie Jane (Margot Robbie) – who, it must be said, does stir some tender feelings with demure long glances and courageous bouts of sticking it to the man, this time being Christoph Waltz. Yet for Jane and all her diving about in hippo-infested waters, it does feel ever so trite a nod to feminism and the multidimensional female characters audiences would love to have seen instead.
Samuel L. Jackson offers comedic relief, yet is somehow awkwardly irritating and irrelevant for much of the film. Waltz, who’s ever so good at playing the insidiously evil albeit polite antagonist, is squandered.
There’s a hauntingly abandoned tree house, densely packed with vintage goods. Token suspense is created by flashbacks of a baby in a cradle. Otherwise, two hours of this CGI outburst amount to little more than relentless action: swinging through the trees, riding a wildebeest, fighting near a thundering waterfall, fighting in the forest. It’s all there.
The Legend Of Tarzan may not challenge you intellectually, but it does raise some important questions about the supremacy of man over beast; about human greed and hope; about sustainability, harmony and co-habitation. All these themes play out as you watch perfectly executed swing sequences, and know it was here that most of the money was spent.
The Legend Of Tarzanis in cinemas now.
