Tarzan Goes to War, Again: The Legend of Tarzan (2016)

                        Recently I watched an old Johnny Weismuller Tarzan movie entitled “Tarzan Triumphs” (1943).  Tarzan battles Nazis in that one, which makes it the rare Tarzan movie that is a war movie.  “The Legend of Tarzan” can be deemed a war movie too, if you stretch the definition a bit.  In this case, the apeman fights Belgian mercenaries.  Before you say this is a step down from Nazis, the Belgians are led by Christopher Waltz.   The movie was directed by David Yates, he of the last four Harry Potter movies and the Fantastic Beasts series, so you know there was no intention to make a retro Tarzan movie.  In fact, it is quite the opposite of “Tarzan Triumphs”.  For instance, the swinging Tarzan is CGI.  However, that body of Alexander Skarsgard is the real deal, ladies.  He trained and dieted for four months for the role.  The first choice, Michael Phelps, would not have had to do that, but his hosting stint on Saturday Night Live ended that thought of stunt casting.  Emma Stone was considered for the Jane role before Margot Robbie got it.  Sorry fellas, Skarsgard is the only one who takes his shirt off.  The screenplay started out being based on the Burrough’s books The Return of Tarzan and Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar.  However, the final screenplay bore little resemblance to those novels.  The film had a $180 million budget and made around $360 million worldwide, which in the wacky world of Hollywood accounting, was not enough to warrant a sequel.  Let’s see if the movie itself warranted a sequel. 

                        In 1884, at the Belgian Conference, the European powers divided up the Congo.  King Leopold of Belgium claimed the Congo basin with its abundant ivory, minerals, and apes.  Five years later, he was in debt and needed the legendary diamonds of Opar.  He sends his sinister agent Leon Rom (Waltz) to get them.  Rom and his mercenaries do the Tarzan movie trope of slaughtering natives, but since this is a 21^st Century Tarzan movie, they get counter-slaughtered.  Rom survives for plot purposes and makes a deal with the Opar chief.  If Rom can seduce Tarzan to leave his cushy British life and get him back to Africa for a revenge killing, the diamonds are Belgium’s.  It seems the chief’s son was killed by Tarzan so he wants payback.  And the movie needs to get Skarsgard out of his clothes.  (By the way, ladies, you can fast forward to the 1:10 mark, if that’s what you came for.  Be aware, this Tarzan does not wear a loin cloth, but I don’t think you will be too disappointed.  Do the words “eight pack abs” intrigue you?)  The now totally civilized Lord Greystoke (he doesn’t grunt like in the movie “Greystoke”) is not falling for any free trip to Africa offer from the Belgians, but he does agree to accompany an American named George Washington Williams (Samuel L. Jackson) in order to save the slaves.  At this point the periodic flashbacks kick in.  These pretty much conform to the basic Tarzan biography.  The rest of the story does not.  Tarzan brings Jane along because Victorian ladies always got their way, right?  They get separated with Jane playing feisty damsel in distress (she’s captured twice!) and Tarzan (with help from his Azeem -  Robin Hood – Prince of Thieves) swinging and slinging.  Tarzan has to fight not only apes, but the natives.  (Both these groups stand in for Native Americans, like in Avatar.  To hammer the analogy in, Williams makes a point of mentioning his role in the conquest of the American West.)   For a hero, Tarzan sure has a lot of enemies.  This all culminates in the type of over the top set piece that you would expect from a 21^st Century Tarzan movie.  (Note the wildebeest charge straight out of Avatar.)

                        These days rebooting does not mean going back to the basics.  It means reanimating Edgar Rice Burrough’s series and pumping it full of adrenaline.  And shrinking the brain.  This movie has more action and mayhem than five Weismuller movies combined.  But that’s what audiences want, right?  Few people today have seen even one of the old Tarzan movies.  If they had, they would have demanded a Cheetah!  In fact, there is little humor in this overly serious film.  It’s kind of hard to be light with slavery.  There is a wink-wink moment when Skarsgard does the Tarzan yell and Rom says:  “It’s rather different than I thought.”  Williams gets to say “Me Tarzan, you Jane” which is the first time that iconic line has been used in any Tarzan movie!   The actors are fine and Skarsgard makes a good Tarzan.  He certainly invested in the role and I’m guessing the ladies liked the choice.  Waltz is continuing to work on getting typecast.  He’s a suave Nazi, I mean Belgian.  The movie throws in a more cartoonish villain in the mercenary leader and then doesn’t bother to flesh him out or give him a cheer-worthy death.  The CGI is fine, especially for the apes.  Tarzan’s fight with his “brother” is amazing.  We have reached the point where Skarsgard did not have to swing on a vine.  That was CGI.  You wouldn’t know it, but the movie was filmed in England with only helicopter views of the gorgeous landscape of Gabon.  Unfortunately, the availability of CGI encourages directors to have silly, unrealistic set pieces like what swamps the movie at the end.

                        “The Legend of Tarzan” was not a misfire.  It is better than the last attempt to revive the series – 1984’s “Greystoke”.  The problem is that it is not as good as the better Weismuller entries.  More is not better.  Our modern penchant for adding more and more action scenes that defy reality and then topping them off with a showstopping and brain cell reducing set piece results in a movie that made $360 million, but barely turned a profit.  Considering the glut of superhero movies, it is hard to see Tarzan becoming a franchise.  Burrough’s novels might be too intellectual for today’s comic book weaned audiences.  When you aim your Tarzan movie at a comic book audience, you lose the quaint childlike wonder of the old Tarzan movies.  But no studio is going to make a movie like that, so watch one of the Weismuller movies.  Johnny didn’t have eight pack abs, but he did his own swinging and swimming.  And he had Cheetah.

GRADE  =  C+

“Now Tarzan Go to War” – Tarzan Triumphs (1943)

          With the advent of World War II, M-G-M decided to dump the Tarzan franchise.  50% of the grosses had come from overseas markets which the studio had seen dry up.  Producer Sol Lesser and RKO were happy to pick up the rights.  M-G-M also traded Johnny Weismuller, Johhny Sheffield, and Cheetah, but not Maureen O’Sullivan.  The excuse was that O’Sullivan was a contract player, but the truth was that Mrs. O’Sullivan was sick of playing Jane and looked at the shift to RKO as a way out.  RKO cast Frances Gifford as the jungle babe.  She had caught eyes starring in a serial called “Jungle Girl”.   (Probably that credit on her resume was sufficient to get the role of “jungle girl”.)   M-G-M, in a dick move, refused to allow Lesser to use the iconic Tarzan yell.  The yell in the movie is abbreviated and weaker.  “Tarzan Triumphs” was the first RKO release after six made by M-G-M.  It was the first Tarzan movie that could be classified as a war movie.  The U.S. State Department encouraged Lesser to make a morale-booster.  This was something of a challenge considering previous films had made it clear Tarzan was a pacifist and previous outings had supported isolationism.  I’m sure director William Thiele, an Austrian, was up for the challenge.

                        For those in the audience concerned about the switch to RKO, the opening scene opens comfortingly with Boy (Sheffield) riding with Cheetah (sigh of relief!) on an elephant (Bully).  Boy says “ungawa”.  Jane may have taught Tarzan English, but Tarzan taught Boy Junglish.  Boy sees the lost city of Palandrya (it’s only a model) and then proceeds to fall off the cliff.  He is rescued by the Wonder Woman-looking Zandra (Gifford).   We learn that Jane is in London with her ailing mother.  She mentions the Blitz in a letter.  The war seems far away, but it intrudes via an “iron bird” carrying Nazi paratroopers.  A Captain Bausch had lived with the Palandryans and clued der Fuhrer in on their exploitable resources.  Their mission is to conquer the “haven of peace” (like they did to Austria).  This will be easier than Poland.  At first, Tarzan refuses to get involved.  “Jungle people only fight to live, civilized people live to fight.”  The only exception is if a jungle person’s son is captured by bad guys.  “Now Tarzan make war”.  So much for isolationism.

                        I had not seen a Weismuller Tarzan movie since my childhood.  I have fond memories, but as an adult I have learned that it’s usually not good to tamper with childhood movies.  They usually don’t hold up.  Plus, this Tarzan movie is a war movie, which means it was jumping genres.  I had no expectation that it would even be decent.  I watched it because my brother Jason is a huge Tarzan fan and he recommended it.  I was skeptical, but what the hell.  I have reviewed “The Incredible Mister Limpet”. 

                        If you are a Weismuller Tarzan fan and a war movie fan, this movie is right up your jungle trail.  The RKO features were lower budget.  The Palandrya set was recycled from “Gunga Din” (1939).  The movie makes up for the lower budget by upping the body count (a Tarzan record).  Fourteen Nazis are killed and they all deserve it.  The deaths are varied and range from being eaten by cannibal fish to being lured into a lion trap.  Most of the killings are done by Tarzan, but he doesn’t hog all the fun.  Boy kills one with a pistol and Cheetah uses a machine gun.  Because he’s Cheetah.  In fact, the movie would have been more accurately entitled “Cheetah Triumphs” or better yet, “Now Tarzan Go to War” (a line that drew applause from audiences). 

                        Thiele knows he is making a Tarzan movie, so he includes the swimming scene and the crocodiles and the vine-swinging.  It’s a war movie, but he doesn’t force in war footage.  Instead, we get the usual wildlife footage.  The swim scene involves some flirting with Zandra which would have enraged Jane, but did not impress the studio execs.  It was deemed that Gifford did not have enough chemistry with Weismuller so this was her last Tarzan film.  By the way, somehow she manages to change from her cleavagey Wonder Woman costume to more modest swimwear.  But then again, the Nazis packed pith helmets to replace their army helmets, so the movie is costume-fluid.  Thiele does not force some Tarzan tropes into a war movie.  Tarzan does not wrestle with a crocodile (or any other animal).  He does not enlist the animal kingdom.     However, he does rescue a damsel in distress and battles civilized villains.  It is a Tarzan movie, after all.

                        Weismuller was near the midway point of his Tarzan career and he is still virile and physical.  He is not at the O’Sullivan stage.  He doesn’t just go through the motions.  It helps that the cast is better than average.  The two main Nazi baddies are not buffoons and they don’t chew too much jungle.  More importantly, the sergeant is played by Sig Ruman (who played Schultz in “Stalag 17”).  He brings some comic relief, but comes out a distant second to the incomparable Cheetah.  That chimp was dynamite!  I recently watched several service comedies that had less laughs than were provided by that monkey.  Stick around for the end where Nazi officials mistake Cheetah for Hitler.

                        “Tarzan Triumphs” is the best Tarzan war movie.  I know it has little, or no, competition, but it is not a bad war movie.  It is a fun watch and it was able to make the leap to a different genre without embarrassing the series.  I would guess the State Department was pleased with it.

GRADE =  B-