The Legend of Tarzan

The Legend of Tarzan directed by David Yates has this American character played by Samuel L Jackson who at one point talks about the dreadful side of colonialism to Tarzan. The problem with the film is that such politics which would have made a difference got restricted to only a few instances like those. Even after having big names like Samuel L Jackson, Christoph  Waltz associated with the project, The Legend of Tarzan is an unappealing dull movie with serious pace issues.

The story happens in the 1890’s and Tarzan aka John Clayton is in England. King Leopold who was trying to conquer Congo to get the diamonds, finally manages to crack a deal with their tribal leader and their demand was to bring back Tarzan. The movie The Legend of Tarzan basically focuses on this trip of John to his favorite place along with Jane (his wife) and Mr. George Washington Williams. The difficulties they had to face in this trip are what the movie depicting.

The movie has two real life characters which are played by Christoph Waltz and Samuel L Jackson. That sort of puts the movie’s issue in a more practical zone. But still the film fails to invite its viewer to look into elements like slavery and the greed of colonial powers towards the natural resources of Africa. It ultimately ends up being a mere love story where the hero has to go after the villain to get his heroin back. The dullness in the sluggish treatment is also a factor that makes this movie uninteresting. Yates in his attempt to create a sophisticated looking Tarzan can’t really build that image we would expect.

Alexander Skarsgard physically looks perfect for the role of Tarzan and with heavy CGI and less complicated emotions to portray on screen the film focuses more on his appearance than acting. Margot Robbie portrayed the role of the confident Jane nicely. Captain Leon Rom isn’t much of a challenge for someone like Mr. Waltz. Samuel L Jackson manages to add his bit of natural humor to the content.

It is the making that clearly pulls the movie backwards. For a story like this, the grandness of treatment was quite essential. Unfortunately there wasn’t any real scene or sequence in the movie which made me say wow for its magnitude. Like I said, the slow pace kind of makes you feel that they are trying desperately to increase the runtime. The back and forth style of narration wasn’t completely in sync.  It was a good try not to repeat the same structure, but the editing wasn’t that catchy. The script hasn’t really achieved the kind of anti-colonial agenda it tries to put forward. The visual effects were terrible in all those scenes I saw in the trailer, but they have managed to rectify it slightly in the movie.

Overall, The Legend of Tarzan disappointed me. The sluggishness and the less explored content make it a movie you don’t mind skipping.

Rating : 2/5