The Legend of Tarzan

I have always loved Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure, a Gordon Scott thriller bound by elemental combat scenes with Sean Connery as a diamond smuggler. Loosely based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar, John Clayton III, aka Lord Greystoke, aka Tarzan of the Jungle is played as both articulate and brooding by Alexander Skarsgard who was one of the vampires on True Blood. As a trade emissary for Parliament, Tarzan returns to Africa to stop a Belgian slaver disguised as a mining liaison, Leon Rom (portrayed by a white suited Christoph Waltz), who has sworn to deliver Tarzan to a tribal chief in return for a fortune in diamonds. Yeah, it owes a debt to Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure but is also a tame interpretation of Burroughs book (with Opar being mentioned), yet in the book Tarzan has an accident that reverts him to a primal feral state, sadly missing here. But then, in the book, Jane is kidnapped by Arabs, and that’s not going to happen, in fact, director David Yates neuters the racial elements by introducing George Washington Williams, an anti-slaver activist played by Samuel L. Jackson who is Tarzan’s sidekick! A basic Tarzan entry in one of the longest running film franchises that reignites the spirit if not the adventure of Burroughs, especially after Disney’s skate-boarding tree hugger animated ape-man!

[PG-13]