Four stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity, violent action and mild sensuality
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.3.16
The original Tarzan franchise ran
an impressive five decades, starting during the silent era and continuing
through the late 1960s, when Edgar Rice Burroughs’ famed character finally was
silenced by the James Bond-influenced spy movie craze (which the final few
Tarzan films attempted to emulate, with predictably awful results).
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| Having just returned to the African Congo that was his childhood home, John Clayton (Alexander Skarsgård, right) and his wife Jane (Margot Robbie) take in long-unseen familiar sights, while their new companion George Washington Williams (Samuel L. Jackson) wonders what he's getting into. |
No doubt hoping to revive what
once had been a great thing, Hollywood subsequently mounted a fresh Tarzan
roughly once per generation, with little success. Robert Towne’s highly
anticipated Greystoke: The Legend of
Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, with Christopher Lambert in the title role, wound
up seriously compromised by behind-the-scenes squabbling, and died an
ignominious death upon its 1984 release.
Even so, that was a better fate
than that suffered by 1998’s dreadful Tarzan
and the Lost City, Casper Van Dien’s stint in the loincloth not even a blip
on the cinematic radar. Indeed, were it not for Disney’s wildly successful 1999
animated feature, I’m not sure the character would resonate in this 21st
century, aside from the ongoing devotion shown by Burroughs fans.
How ironic, then — how pleasantly ironic — that just when the
regal jungle lord seemed doomed to extinction, a fresh team has delivered a
truly majestic Tarzan film.
We’ve not seen an entry this entertaining
since Gordon Scott’s terrific double-header of Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure and Tarzan
the Magnificent, back in 1959 and ’60.
Scripters Adam Cozad and Craig
Brewer managed a truly impressive balancing act. On the one hand, they’ve
faithfully honored the Burroughs template, acknowledging John Clayton as a
feral child who grew up in the African wild, but later reclaimed his British
roots as the fifth Earl of Greystoke, and a member of the English House of
Lords. He’s a deeply moral and perceptively intelligent man (as greatly opposed
to the monosyllabic dummy Johnny Weissmüller made him, in so many early films)
At the same time, Cozad and
Brewer have addressed contemporary sensibilities, granting John and his wife Jane
the enlightened awareness to recognize — and repudiate — the heinous late
19th century imperialism that arrogantly (and arbitrarily) “divided” great
swaths of Africa between various European monarchs, who subsequently subjugated
and/or enslaved the resident populations.
All that aside, this film also
succeeds as an exhilarating adventure that pits the remarkable jungle lord against
overwhelming odds orchestrated by a hissably evil villain. Everything builds to
a (literally) smashing climax, which drew more than a few enthusiastic cheers
from Monday evening’s preview audience.
This is a Tarzan to admire.
