Jackson), an American activist who will accompany him to investigate whether reports that the natives are being enslaved are true. His reluctance to go is overcome by the prodding of George Washington Williams (Samuel L. Here, Tarzan (Alexander Skarsgard) is enjoying the civilized life in England as Lord Greystoke, the happy husband of beautiful Jane (Margot Robbie), but is lured back to the jungle at the invitation of King Leopold and the instance of the British government, to determine whether the Empire’s investment in the Congo, where the cash-strapped king claims to be establishing an enlightened government, would be appropriate. Oddly, moreover, while aiming for grandeur Yates’s film proves little different, in terms of plot, from the most recent incarnation of the ape man, 1998’s chintzy “Tarzan and the Lost City” with Casper Van Dien, in which Tarzan went back to Africa from England to thwart a scheme by a nasty villain to capture a legendary city’s riches and mystical power. That might be a laudable idea, but in the event it plays pulpish havoc with history (as much as the recent “X-Men” movies have done) while turning Tarzan himself into a curiously pale reflection of his former self.
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The latest resuscitation, a big-budget effort crammed with CGI effects, is one of the ambitious ones, played under David Yates’s sober direction with a degree of solemnity that shouts its aspirations to importance by placing Burroughs’ character into the struggle against the brutalization of the people of central Africa during the establishment of Belgian King Leopold II’s exploitative Congo Free State in the late 1880s. More often, though, the jungle hero has been subjected to laughable treatment in features like MGM’s 1959 fiasco “Tarzan, the Ape Man” with Denny Miller, and the similarly-titled 1981 abomination that actor-turned-director John Derek fashioned as a vehicle for his wife Bo, who played Jane (with hapless Miles O’Keefe in support as a speechless Tarzan), along with a succession of junky television series. Most of the Tarzan movies since then have been low-budget efforts, though there have been occasional exceptions: the initial MGM Johnny Weissmuller pictures, starting in 1932, were prestige productions, and Hugh Hudson’s 1984 “Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes” tried for epic status. Edgar Rice Burroughs’ ape man has been around in print for a bit more than a century now, and has been a screen staple for nearly as long, the initial adaptation with beefy Elmo Lincoln appearing in 1918.
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