Daily Times

‘The Legend Of Tarzan’ revolves around a grown-up Tarzan who, some years ago, left his home in the jungles of Africa behind him – having since taken up an aristocrat’s life in England as John Clayton, 3rd Viscount Greystoke, with his wife Jane Porter.

Tarzan is then approached by one George Washington Williams, a US Civil War veteran, who wants the Lord of the Apes to accompany him to the Congo as a trade emissary of the House of Commons. However, in private, Williams informs Tarzan that his true intention is to use the Ape-Man’s fame as a means for him to investigate what’s really happening in the region of the Congo now being occupied by the forces of Belgium King Leopold II.

When Tarzan, Jane, and Williams secretly make their way into the Congo without being accompanied by the Belgium forces, it doesn’t take long for Captain Léon Rom – who is overseeing King Leopold’s operations there – to realise that they are suspicious of what he and Leopold’s army are really up to: enslaving the locals and exploiting the region for its precious minerals – in particular, diamonds. With thousands of hired mercenaries on their way to the Congo to support Rom in his campaign, Tarzan, Jane, and Williams must race against time to stop the dastardly captain before his army arrives in full.

‘The Legend Of Tarzan’ is the latest instalment in the long-running Tarzan movie franchise, as was inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs’ famous stories about the Ape-Man from the early 20th century. The movie, as you would expect, attempts to update the Tarzan character and his world for the 21st century – giving Burroughs’ source material the modern big-budget tent pole treatment, complete with a cast that features several A-listers. While there are some intriguing elements in ‘The Legend Of Tarzan’, the movie falls short of realising its ambitions because, taken as a whole, it’s an uneven patchwork of different revisionist approaches to the ‘Lord Of The Apes’.

There’s a great Tarzan adventure somewhere in ‘The Legend Of Tarzan’, but the movie is too overstuffed and rough around the edges to fly high. While the film’s efforts to deliver a more substantial tent pole featuring the ‘Lord Of The Apes’ are admirable and partly successful, its story elements and technical components don’t add up to a cohesive whole.

Moviegoers in the mood for a film with more ambition than your average popcorn film may get added mileage from ‘Legend of Tarzan’, for that reason – but if you’re already unconvinced that a big-budget Tarzan reboot in 2016 is a good idea, ‘The Legend Of Tarzan’ is unlikely to change your mind.