by Peter Callaghan

It’s Tarzan, Jim, but not as we know it. Cheetah’s been pensioned-off. The iconic war cry, now more Johnny Rotten than Johnny Weissmuller, is used sparingly and replaced by whispers of the animal and sweet-nothing variety, the latter to a befrocked Jane who looks as though she’s walked off the set of a Jane Austen costume drama. And in place of the skimpy lion cloth is a pair of equally skin-tight but much more fashionable three-quarter-length khaki shorts à la the Gap summer sale. Throw into the mix the systematic abuse and enslavement of the Congolese people by a corrupt Belgian in pursuit of a girl’s best friend and what you’ve got is a quietly impressive though far from legendary Tarzan fit – well fit, I may add – for the twenty-first century.

Alexander Skarsgård plays the six-packed Tarzan aka John Clayton III aka Lord Greystoke who along with the gag-packed Samuel L. Jackson as the American diplomatic envoy George Washington Williams accept a duplicitous invitation from Captain Léon Rom (Christoph Waltz) to oversee the good work that both he and King Leopold of Belgium have done to improve trade links and counter slavery in the recently acquired Congo. Nothing could be further from the truth, however, as Rom’s sole goal is to unlawfully restore his bankrupt country’s wealth and reputation by securing access to the highly lucrative and bountiful reserves of diamonds which lie deep in the jungle under the feet of the Opar tribe which is literally spearheaded by Chief Mbong (Djimon Hounsou) who has promised to grant Rom access to the mines in return for the man who took the life of his only son – Tarzan.

Tarzan and Gee Double-Yuh get wind of their plan and jump ship further up the coast from the soldier-swarming port where they see for themselves the systematic abuse and enslavement of the Congolese people who have been forced to build towering bridges, scores of forts and hundreds of miles of railway track to transport the goods from mine to market. But boo-hiss Rom tracks them down, captures Jane and leads them straight into the warpath of the Opar tribe who are hellbent on wreaking revenge for the loss of their chief’s only son. But why did Tarzan kill him? Will his answer defuse or enrage Chief Mbonga? And will his animal talking skills match those of Doctor Dolittle and persuade them to take down the white man? Answers on the back of a Congolese postcard.

Given the number of reboots and sequels which have flooded the cinema of late, I was going to give The Legend of Tarzan a miss. And even though it’s far from legendary and the tone is a bit iffy (“You do know that the right side of your moustache is a little lower than the left” is hardly a scene-ending zinger), it’s quietly impressive. The action sequences build to a snappy death-by-croc crescendo, the special effects used to replicate and give character to the multifarious creatures of the jungle are realistic to the pixel (though nothing comes close to the infamous bear-mauling scene in The Revenant) and the performances by the four leads are enjoyable, particularly Samuel L. Jackson who shines as the comedy sidekick. For example, when asked by Tarzan to bow down to a warring gorilla, he snarls: “Do you want me to lick his nuts, too?” I’ll never look at monkey nuts in the same light again!

[imdb id=tt0918940]

Peter Callaghan
Latest posts by Peter Callaghan (see all)