I consider "Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes" one of my few favourite motion pictures. One of my few criticisms of that wonderful film is the ending wherein Tarzan returns to the rain forest leaving Jane behind. That movie was the beginning of Tarzan, his travel to Victorian England, and the impossibility of his living in that society. In this "Greystoke" departed from what Burroughs had written. In "The Legend of Tarzan" we have a riff on the first novel and of "The Jewels of Opar", one of Burroughs' best remembered books. Here Tarzan returns to Africa into the Congo genocide. I was pleasantly surprised that the star so resembles Lambert in "Greystoke" rather than a steroidal muscle man. The writing is superb and must have been extremely difficult: a late 19th century story yet addressed to a 21st century audience, with some unnecessary anti-Catholic but now fashionable material. Robbie and Jackson are standouts, even if Jackson seems sometimes a bit too 21st century. Skarsgard, however, is superb in his portrayal of a man with PTSD torn between wild and civilized, internal and external, a vulnerable Superman. I think that Edgar Rice Burroughs would be proud of this excellent Tarzan movie, a worthy successor to "Greystoke". A special mention must be made of the glorious music, both orchestral and vocal.
Review of The Legend of Tarzan
