The Legend Of Tarzan Review

The Legend Of Tarzan is a film which comes from popular Harry Potter director, David Yates. It stars Alexander Skarsgård as Tarzan, Margot Robbie as Jane and Christoph Waltz as the villain Leon. The film takes place in a time when Tarzan seems to have already left the jungle and is now enjoying what seems to some form of aristocratic life in England with Jane. But something sinister is happening in his old home, meaning that Tarzan and Jane must travel back and put an end to this evil before it gets out of hand.

Tarzan is a film that I have been really looking forward to seeing all year and was even more excited to see this than I was when I went to see The Jungle Book. It’s fairly good, it does have all the actors in there that I like at the moment, the special effects are well done and the director did well enough with it. But it’s not without its problems though, the story is very linear, it’s basically Tarzan goes to visit the jungle, Jane gets captured, then Tarzan must rescue her. It’s a little too simple for me and at times I felt things seems toned down, possibly to keep the rating for a lower age group, it maybe could have benefited by being slightly more rougher, but oh well I guess.

I did love the special effects, it seems to be only  a few year’s away now that it’ll be really hard to tell if something is a real gorilla or a computer generated one and that’s a great thing. The jungle scenery is excellent, although I did prefer the look of The Jungle Book’s jungle a bit more than what we got here, it seems much more alive. The film’s set in the 1800’s and as a period film, things look great.

Action doesn’t disappoint either, you get to see Tarzan fight a big gorilla and this African tribesman who wears a leopard coat and has claws. Those are the two highlights for the film, but you see Tarzan do a lot more, he seems super strong. I think in one scene, he looked like he got shot, but kept on coming. I guess growing up in the jungle does that to people, he’s just super tough and there’s just no stopping Tarzan at all.

The acting is great. I always enjoy seeing Christoph Waltz play a villain and he’s got some of the best moments in the film. My favourite scene in The Legend Of Tarzan would be the dinner scene between Christoph Waltz and Margot Robbie, which was a great moment for the actors and helped raise the film’s tensions even higher. Alexander Skarsgård is a good Tarzan, he looks like a Tarzan and moves like Tarzan should. But possibly he needed more lines or character development, it’s like I kind of know who he is, but I don’t really. If this movie ever gets a sequel I do hope we get something more for the Tarzan character. There’s also Samuel L. Jackson who plays a real life person, George Washington Williams. Samuel’s character is more there for some jokes and comedy and is really just kind of like Tarzan’s sidekick. But he’s funny though and still had his moments.

The story is really the only thing holding the film back, it just feels like there was something missing, but was still decent enough to not be bad. I did like that the film had some meaning to it. I left the cinema thinking how bad some foreign countries were back in the 1800’s and even before that. Foreign governments were coming in, taking diamonds or other resources from these countries that were still in a tribal stage and they were extracting their wealth and at the same time taking away their culture. It’s very sad really and there’s a moment in the film where George Washington Williams (Samuel L. Jackson) mentions about the American Indians and was sad about it, it’s all the same. These things were highlights of the film and there is some good to the story. If it just had a bit more Tarzan character development and was maybe a bit more violent, I would probably score it higher.

Overall The Legend Of Tarzan film experience is decent. It’s got great actors who are all putting out great films at the moment, you get Margot Robbie, Alexander Skarsgård, Samuel L. Jackson and Chritoph Waltz who all deliver on their parts. Special effects are great and are on a similar level to what we saw in this year’s The Jungle Book. There are some great action scenes thrown in there to keep you entertained and some more dramatic moments to keep things tense. The film has a good message about foreign countries stealing wealth from weaker ones and ruining the culture that was once there and it’s not a bad Tarzan story. If it had just a little bit more development for the Tarzan character, this film probably would have been great. It’s still a decent experience and it’s a good movie for you to go to see and you might enjoy it, but it didn’t leave me with a feeling that I want to see it over and over again. I do recommend going to see this at least once though and I believe seeing it in the cinema will be the best choice to watch this one.