Ed's Review Dot Com

Dark Horse Entertainment, Jerry Weintraub Productions, Riche Productions,

Alexander Skarsgård, Samuel L. Jackson, Margot Robbie, Djimon Hounsou, Christoph Waltz, John Hurt

As we all remember, John Clayton (Alexander Skarsgard) was lost in Africa as a baby and grew up raised by the apes as Tarzan, King of the Jungle. Later he was rescued (?) and brought to England and reclaimed his rightful right as British nobility. This story picks up when he is requested to return to Africa to investigate potential slave trade and the rape and pillage of the Congo.

I must admit up front that I have never been enthralled with the Tarzan stories ever. Even as a kid, my friends loved to spend Saturdays watching Johnny Weismuller wrestle crocodiles and snakes and rescue the poor natives from the evil white hunters. None of the dozens and dozens of attempts to tell this story every impressed me greatly, including Disney’s cartoon version which was destroyed by Rosie O’Donnell. This one I have to admit is done very, very well. This is the best “looking” version of Tarzan I’ve ever seen. It helps that I saw it in Imax I suppose. But the story was really confusing. We kept jumping though time to see Greystoke in Parliament, then a baby in the jungle, then on the trip down to Africa to fight the slavers, then as Tarzan the ape man, then as an Englishman again. Now he’s traveling with Jane, now he hasn’t met her yet, now she needs rescued, but then she’s with him again, then finally he goes back to rescue her from somebody back in time somewhere. It was all very confusing. Furthermore, you don’t really care about the outcome of anything. Cristoph Waltz once again plays a really, really nasty villain, which is he is really good at, and Samuel L Jackson is around for comedic distraction now and again, but the whole thing was so disjointed I gave up. I am really not sure where to recommend you toss your dollars to the theater owners this weekend, but surely there must be something decent out of the mess of films that seem to be foundering. If you’ve got small kids who have not seen Tarzan and they will be impressed with the vicious apes and crocodiles shown in terror-vision, they are really good CGI moments, and the kids my enjoy this. But if you grew up on Tarzan, this is not going to be an impressive trip down memory lane. My best recommendation is to skip this one, or at least wait till the DVD comes out.

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