Genre – Action, Adventure

Director – David Yates

Running Time – 110 mins

Tarzan, when you first hear that name what automatically pops to mind? A human raised by animals? A jungle? An animation? Your childhood? Whatever it maybe, fact is, for most of us, the franchise invokes feelings of nostalgia, much like the first review we wrote on the Ninja Turtles . These days we’re seeing more of these popular childhood animation titles making their way onto the big screen in real life settings. I for one am liking it and it turns out that I’m not the only one – just consider how well they do on global box offices.

As usual, officially in cinemas from last week Friday, The Legend of Tarzan is a good movie with a solid storyline that sees our hero Tarzan in normal world settings, away from the jungle at first. This was a good, different but very welcome change.

So what’s the synopsis exactly?

It’s been nearly a decade since Tarzan (Alexander Skarsgård), also known as John Clayton III, left Africa to live in Victorian England with his wife Jane (Margot Robbie – who we’re also going to be seeing in the much anticipated Suicide Squad). Danger lurks on the horizon as Leon Rom (Christoph Waltz – one of my favorite and brilliant actors who was excellent in Django Unchained), a treacherous envoy for King Leopold, hatches up a scheme that eventually lures our favorite couple to Congo. His plan? To capture Tarzan and deliver him to an old enemy in exchange for diamonds. When Jane becomes a pawn in his devious plot, Tarzan must return to the jungle to save the woman he loves (Yeah I know, that last bit is quite cheesy).

Samuel L Jackson as George Washington Williams also makes an excellent supporting actor, deserves a mention.

What we liked

As mentioned before, the movie has a solid storyline that is easy to follow and understand. Over and above that though, the movie also includes some spectacular scenery (similar to that of the recent Jungle Book movie) with the casting and story being equally impressive. Newcomer, Skarsgård (Tarzan) is immense and a stout choice for the role, he just towers over everything (except the Gorillas) and is very convincing in the role. As for the usual suspects Jackson, Robbie and Waltz, well you pretty much know what you are going to get, very solid performances.

What we didn’t like

A minor problem with the start of the movie – our continent “Africa” being at times being referred to as one whole country and a slight annoyance of “Congo” being referred to as “The Congo” (yes not that serious but I found that strangely annoying).

Anyway, how about the rating? The movie gets a 3 out of 5 rating from me. Good movie, go see it.