Boundless, not bountiful

Johnson Thomas

 While David Yates’ revisionist version of Edgar Rice Burroughs ‘The legend of Tarzan’ is not as deep a film as Hugh Hudson's ‘ Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes’( 1984), it’s also not quite the ridiculous one fashioned by John Derek, ‘Tarzan The Ape Man’ (1981). 

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This film, set at the anvil of King Leopold (of Belgium) II’s colonisation of the Congo in 1880, has the white boy raised by the apes in the African jungle, back in the civilised world, shedding his loincloth for the sartorial elegance of a city-bred, while assuming his position as the wealthy Lord Greystoke married to the beauteous, fellow African bred, Jane (Margot Robbie). The lure to return back to his happy hunting ground comes from reports that a villainous Belgian captain, Leopold (Christoph Waltz) is making life difficult for the people and animals living there. It takes an American diplomatic envoy, George Washington Williams (Samuel L Jackson), in London, to persuade Lord Greystoke to accompany him to Africa to find out what Leopold is really up to. From there on, the action begins. Jane is kidnapped and Lord Greystroke has to get back into Tarzan mode to save the day. 

While the action has vigour, the drama is pretty much flimsy, so it’s up to the live action camerawork to really make the adventure close-to-worthy of an expensive trip to the theatres. A large part has been shot in never-seen-before locations in Gabon, which makes it fresh virgin forested territory for Tarzan aficionados. The film is satisfactory, but not entirely involving.