| Tarzan and Samuel L. Jackson? |
Ok, he is not swinging on the vines from tree to tree, but you get my point. He is somewhat of an iconic figure that people seem to recognize. But, also, in my opinion, he is not as particularly a memorable character as I would want him to be. He screams, swings and is part of the jungle life and that's all. But, other than that, Tarzan has a presence in the jungle like he is part of the animal life. This movie has a lot of going for it because of the success of the earlier hit, The Jungle Book, this year with some great special effects and a good story. With some great moments in its visual substance and some solid adventurous pacing in its action, the movie is devoid of a solid storyline and some interesting characters.
We all know the tale. After being shipwrecked, John Clayton II and his wife, Alice, (Hadley Fraser and Genevieve O'Reilly) and their infant son, John Clayton III, are stranded in the jungle of the African Congo. Obviously, his parents are killed and the apes take John Clayton III as their son. In the 1800s, a conference is taken place to divide up the African Congo. King Leopold of Belgium has seized the land and diamonds, resulting in large profits. Leopold sent Captain Rom (Christoph Waltz) to secure the minerals. Rom and his men and Chief Mbonga's (Djimon Hounsou) tribe get in a firefight. After Rom's men get killed, Mbonga and Rom make a deal to trade in diamonds for a man named Tarzan.
Tarzan is also known as John Clayton III (Alexander Skarsgård), who has returned to England as Lord Greystoke. He is invited to head an expedition to Boma in which George Washington Williams (Samuel L. Jackson) urges him to go as he is the famed ape man known as Tarzan. Even though he initially declined the invitation, John changes his mind. When we meet Jane (Margot Robbie), his wife and teacher, they met when they were both at a jungle as John was uneducated and did not know English. John tells Jane about the expedition and she is thinking about if she could come, but he says that she cannot because of her sad experience of a miscarriage. Later, she says she will go as George, Jane and John go to the Congo for the expedition for another adventure.
| Margot Robbie as Jane. |
Alexander Skarsgård actually is presentable as Tarzan because I bought him as a man who had belonged in a jungle. He captured the ape man real well. I thought Margot Robbie was solid as Jane but the writers titled her as solely as a damsel-in-distress for most of the movie but she stands on her own at times. I have no idea what Samuel L. Jackson was doing in this movie as he plays a comedic sidekick. It felt like he was strolling on-set from another comedy and playing a character from today and not in the 1800s. And, Christoph Waltz is a great actor but this is the first time I felt like his villain was one-note, uninteresting and his plot was generic.
I was surprised at how director David Yates ended the Harry Potter series with a great conclusion but could not back up his technical and storyline expertise for this movie. The filmmaking structure was nonlinear but it was incorrect to placate the flashbacks in the middle of the movie. It should have been straight forward as to why John came back to England. Skarsgård and Robbie are good individually, but lacked a little bit of chemistry as I did not see much of a romantic connection between the two. Structurally, the movie is a mess with a generic storyline that ultimately makes the experience a forgettable one.
**
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