Movie review: ‘Tarzan' reboot is a terrific run through the jungle

It's the late 1800s, somewhere in the wilderness of the Congo. A British Army squadron led by Captain Rom (Christoph Waltz) is on an expedition to find the Diamonds of Opar. And nothing is going to stop them. Certainly not the small group of locals who are guarding them. All it takes is a command from Rom, and they're gunned down. But watch out, Rom's men are soon slaughtered by a phalanx of additional natives with blades and spears. Only Rom is left alive, and he's brought to meet Chief Mbonga (Djimon Hounsou), and is told, "You can have the diamonds, if you bring HIM to me."

Him? That would be Tarzan or Lord Greystoke or, for goodness sake, John, who as pop culture fans have known for a century, was a toddler when his well-to-do parents brought him along on a trip to the Dark Continent, and things went terribly wrong. Orphaned and alone, he was raised by apes.

But that story's been told onscreen enough times, and though its grounds are covered in some excellently presented flashbacks, it's not the story of this film. "The Legend of Tarzan" is set a few decades later, and John (Alexander Skarsgard) is back home in London, and has been living the quiet, dignified life at Greystoke Manor for eight years, happily married to Jane Porter (Margot Robbie). The film's best and hottest and funniest flashback involves their first meeting in the jungle.

Word comes to the manor, via a visitor named George Washington Williams (Samuel L. Jackson), that Tarzan has been invited to visit the Congo by King Leopold to check out the "African situation." Williams gets two answers: "No" and "My name is John, not Tarzan."

But eventually some convincing is done, and Jane, who adored the freedom of jungle life, and still considers it her "home," insists that she's going along, too. And why not? Every now and then she and her man still climb trees together on their property.

So it's off to the Congo, with Williams along for the trip, and an immediate and wide-ranging arc of affecting reactions when they get there. A beautiful moment of a lion remembering Tarzan — sorry, I just can't call him John, though Jane always does — is followed in short order by the horrific sight of cartloads of poached elephant tusks.

Director David Yates knows his way around complicated movies. He made the last four entries in the Harry Potter series, and he's got masterful control here as the stories and themes and messages and dark secrets come swooping through the film. At various stages it's about money, revenge, kidnapping, slave trading, family ties, and a whole other case of revenge.

There's even an allusion to cannibalism.

The action and accompanying visual effects are superb. Some of those effects involve hordes of realistic CGI animals; others have to do with the fact that the whole film was made on English soundstages, then footage of Africa was seamlessly merged in for background authenticity.

Waltz is the prissy, smiling villain of the piece … again. Never mind that he's a ruthless killer, he also refers to our hero as "the little monkey boy." He really needs to play a different kind of role before he's trapped by typecasting. Robbie, the Aussie actress who got a lot of notice as Leo DiCaprio's love interest in "The Wolf of Wall Street," gives us the feistiest, most spirited Jane ever. Jackson initially has an air of mystery around him but neatly turns his part into a sort of comic relief. And Swedish actor Skarsgard, best known as Eric on "True Blood," handily makes the iconic role his own, certainly by looking the part physically, but also by playing him as a conflicted man who really doesn't know where he belongs in the world.

It's a highly emotional, spectacularly exciting, quite romantic, good old-fashioned movie. And, yes, we get some great vine swinging and two well placed Tarzan yells.

— Ed Symkus covers movies for More Content Now.

"The Legend of Tarzan"

Written by Adam Cozad and Craig Brewer; directed by David Yates

With Alexander Skarsgard, Margot Robbie, Samuel L. Jackson, Christoph Waltz

Rated PG-13