Hasta La Motion!

The Legend of Tarzan misses the emotional connect and the storytelling aura that the animated film of 1999 created by Disney possessed. It definitely takes you into the jungle but does not let you swing with the story. Ironically, as opposed to animation where there’s lot of freedom, live-action has many limitations. However, this venture of Warner Bros. fails to take the audience for a jungle ride both in terms of the CGI created animals and visual effects for various sequences. The limitations of curating action glory shots are not exploited and freedom to dramatise the story remains untouched.

The film opens in the 1884 era portraying the protagonist Tarzan played by Alexander Skarsgård as John Clayton III, a member of the House of Lords of the culturally rooted society of England. He is quite civilised and leads a normal married life with his wife Jane Porter played by Margot Robbie.

‘Home is where your heart is’. Just like a craving soul that longs to get drenched and return to the water body, Tarzan returns to his African Jungle to make things right. However, the crave is not felt and his return to the jungle is just like a normal retreat without much of an enthralling effect on the viewers.

As we all have at least a superficial idea about the story of Tarzan, this film follows a similar plot with Captain Léon Rom played by Christoph Waltz as the antagonist who intends to capture Tarzan for his greed and hurt the wild creatures. The antagonism doesn’t end there as the ferocious leader of an African tribe Chief Mbonga played by Djimon Hounsou also waits to take revenge from Tarzan due to the dark past incidents. However, George Washington Williams played by Samuel L. Jackson proves to be a helpful ally to the ape man and free the tribal folks too.

The film stands true to the basic concept of the ape man saving his terrestrial family from the greed of prosperous humans and the dominating love story of ‘Tarzan and Jane’. But amidst this basic message, to build up the story,the film also tries to convey a lot of developments that proceed parallelly which somewhere makes it lose the connection between Tarzan, his wild home and the essence of his relations with the gorillas. This lead to unfulfilled expectations of the viewers.

The CGI animals look out of place in various sequences like the ostriches running, the elephants strolling in the forest, the wild bulls charging, and the crocodiles entering the water. Even the paramount highlight of the story ‘Tarzan swinging on the trees’ looks unrealistic when the pace is increased. Also, the lighting at various instances doesn’t make the scene believable especially the sequence when the gorillas surround Mbonga’s men.

The classic fight between Tarzan and the gorilla is visually appealing as the might of the wild beast is felt immensely. It is a scene to be experienced in an IMAX. The visual effects are created by Framestore, MPC, Rising Sun Pictures, Lola Visual Effects, Method Studios and Rodeo FX. Despite so many famous studios involved, the final VFX and CGI has failed to enchant the viewers visually.

Directed by David Yates and written by Adam Cozad and Craig Brewer and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, The Legend of Tarzan released on 1 July, 2016.

If you have been a Tarzan follower, there are always few highlights that you may like to watch out for – Tarzan swinging on the trees, beating his chests with the usual gorilla echo, rescuing Jane, romantic chemistry between the duo, living a life of fantasy in the jungle, standing in unison with his family of gorillas with a deep emotional connect and fighting to save the jungle and restore his home. The film displays few of these, mostly in flashbacks but misses on significant breathtaking moments. Probably, this is how the creators wanted the movie to pan out.

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