Late again. But I’m
done traveling for a bit, so I hope that I’ll be more on time with watching
movies and writing reviews.
I took the opportunity to see The Legend of Tarzan recently.
I had a peek at the Rotten Tomatoes ratings before seeing it: The professional critics didn’t like it a
whole lot, but movie goers were more positive about it. The ads for it did a good job of piquing my
interest, and I have to say that they represented it fairly well.
One of the things I was curious about was how everything
would fit into the movie, specifically how Tarzan’s origin would be
treated. It seemed like a lot to try to
shoehorn into a film that’s shy of 2 hours long. I appreciated how the writers handled it,
though. Instead of telling a linear
story, the origin was told in flashbacks.
We were given bits here and there as the movie went along. And, credit to the writing/editing, they did
not make the movie seem choppy and disjointed.
I thought there was a good flow throughout.
Related to the story
format, the movie was well paced. It
started with some action and set the stage for the rest of the film. There was some decent character development—more
with deeds than with words, which is a very good thing. And even when there were down times between
action scenes, I didn’t get bored.
I’ve mentioned before that I like to see some blood on the
hero. And there was some of that. Tarzan wasn’t invulnerable. But he could sure put up a fight! And with a nicely sculpted torso, arms, and
shoulders, too. I did find myself
wondering when he found time to shave, and where he carried his toiletry bag.
There were some clichéd bits here and there. A bit of a spoiler here (be warned), Tarzan
doesn’t want Jane to accompany him on the trip to Africa because of the
danger. Jane insists on going
anyway. And, surprise, she’s promptly
captured by the bad guys and used as bait for her husband. Granted that there wouldn’t have been as much
of a story if she’d stayed home, but that plot device is way over used. At least she wasn’t all wilty and whiny. She put up a good fight, tried escaping, and
facilitated the escape of some others.
A good portion of the animals that were characters in the
film were (probably) motion capture CGI.
I have to say that I wasn’t all that impressed with the apes. The most recent two Planet of the Apes movies
did a phenomenal job with their motion captures apes (chimps, gorillas, and
orangutans, mostly), and they set the standard going forward. I didn’t think that Tarzan did nearly as good a job at making their gorillas (or
gorilla-like apes) lifelike. It was a
bit distracting at first, but got better once I got used to the style.
Given the fantastical nature of the story (a man raised by
apes, communicating with just about any animal in the jungle, swinging around
on vines, fighting things two to three times his mass or more, etc.), I went in
prepared with a healthy amount of suspension of disbelief. And there was a time or two when I wondered
if the vine Tarzan was swinging on was attached to a track of some kind, to
allow him to travel on it as far as he did.
But there was a bit at the climax that I couldn’t get over.
**ALERT! SPOILER
AHEAD!**
Near the end of the movie, the army of bad guys is camped
next to a port town in the Congo, right on the ocean. And Tarzan and company cause a stampede of
wildebeests (gnus) to overrun the camp and city, foiling the bad guys’
plans. But wildebeests are savanna
animals! They would have had to stampede
for hundreds of miles and through thick jungle to get there! It bugged me so much that I had to go to the
online source of all truth and knowledge (Wikipedia) to be sure that I wasn’t
bothered by that for no reason. And I
wasn’t. So be warned that there was a
bit that my giant sized capacity for suspension of disbelief couldn’t handle.
There were some other great characters besides Tarzan, by
the way. Samuel L. Jackson did a great
job in his role. The main bad guy, Leon
Rom, was played very well by the guy who was the main bad guy in the last Bond
flick, Spectre. Jane was played by Margot Robbie. Other than her hair color (which bothered me
for some reason), I thought she did a good job as well.
Overall, I really enjoyed the film—almost despite
myself. Aside from the ridiculousness
near the end, it was a story that I liked quite a lot. If you’re looking for a movie with a good
amount of action, beautiful scenery, and nice retelling of an old story, this
one is well worth watching.
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