Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

The Legend of Tarzan Blu-ray Movie Review

"I Don't THINK So, Wild Man!"

Reviewed by Michael Reuben October 12, 2016

It's been over thirty years since Warner's last attempt to revive Tarzan bombed at the box office. After the disappointing performance of Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, the studio was understandably skittish about sinking major investment into the popular but dated franchise. As writers and directors came and went over the years, the project gradually morphed into what even its eventual director, Harry Potter helmer David Yates, has called a comic book movie. But Warner already has a full slate of comic book movies (and TV shows) based on familiar franchises with established fan bases, whereas the Tarzan mythology needs to be reimagined and reintroduced. By taking the path of least resistance, Yates and screenwriters Craig Brewer (Hustle & Flow) and Adam Cozad (Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit) have produced a Tarzan that feels neither modern nor historical, but merely blank. Yates fills the frame with CGI vistas and creatures, but he never achieves the sense of romance and adventure that first made Tarzan a popular figure.

Released over the Fourth of July weekend, The Legend of Tarzan (or "TLOT") failed to ignite at the box office, delivering a domestic take of $126.6 million against a production budget of $180 million. Foreign receipts boosted the total to $356.1, which is about $44 million short of the estimated "break even" target. Warner is presumably hoping to make up some of the difference in video sales and rentals.

TLOT is set in 1890, eight years after the man formerly known as "Tarzan" has returned to England and is now comfortably ensconced in the life of an English nobleman under his given name, John Clayton III, Earl of Greystoke (Alexander Skarsgård). Happily married to an American wife, the former Jane Porter (Margot Robbie), Clayton initially rejects the request of Her Majesty's government to return to his former environs in the Congo at the invitation of the Belgian King Leopold to report on the monarch's efforts on behalf of the native inhabitants. (The British Prime Minister is played by Jim Broadbent, in an extended cameo.) But Clayton reconsiders after an American envoy, George Washington Williams (Samuel L. Jackson), tells him that the Belgians may be up to no good, endangering the lives of Clayton's former friends in the jungle, both human and animal.

Williams is right, of course. King Leopold's chief henchman, Leon Rom (Christoph Waltz, who has played this villain elsewhere—and better), has crafted a secret plan to enslave the Congo that is poised for implementation as soon as the insolvent King produces the funds to pay for it. Rom's solution is to obtain a cache of sacred diamonds from the tribe of Chief Mbonga (Djimon Hounsou), which the chief will give Rom only on one condition: Rom has to produce the Chief's old enemy, who is—you guessed it—Tarzan. (Though Rom's initial attempt to seize the diamonds with a small complement of soldiers is thwarted by an ambush, one has to wonder why he doesn't just return with the greater forces and deadly weaponry later revealed to be at his disposal and just wipe out the entire tribe, which he plans to do anyway. But never mind.) No sooner do John Clayton and Jane return with Williams to the Congo region where they first met, renewing old acquaintances with the indigenous population, then Rom attacks, kidnapping Jane and forcing Clayton and Williams to follow. The pursuit leads the mismatched pair through the jungles where Clayton once was Tarzan, returning him to his past and confronting him with the apes who raised him but now see him as an enemy. Clayton must reconnect with his former identity to defeat Rom and his minions.

All of this setup burdens a film that's supposed to be a grandly exciting adventure with mouthfuls of dense exposition that routinely slow it to a crawl. The opening has five screens of explanatory text that reads like the Trade Federation minutia from The Phantom Menace, and midway through the film, the action stops dead so that Williams can deliver an account of his tortured past as a soldier who helped exterminate Native Americans, thereby reinforcing the film's anti-colonial theme. But wait! There's more. Yates also gives us jaggedly edited flashbacks recounting Tarzan's origin story from his parents' death through his adoption by CG apes to his relationship with Jane. And then there's the question of why Chief Mbonga wants Tarzan brought to him in the first place, which leads us back into the ape man's earlier life in the jungle, in a sequence so roughly edited that it's hard to tell the difference between past and present.

With so much narrative baggage, it's little wonder that TLOT fails to generate any suspense or forward momentum. The film lurches from one computer-generated set piece to another, but none of them inspires a sense of awe or mystery about Africa and its inhabitants, because Yates has to keep jumping from one branch of the story to another. For his grand finale, Yates doesn't even stay in the jungle but instead shifts the action to a port city where the battle between Tarzan and Rom topples buildings in a style better suited to Gotham or Metropolis. It's a fitting end to a saga that repeatedly sacrifices its source material to the demands of comic book cred and makes only a token effort to remain true to its historical era. TLOT may be dressed in period garb, but it's loaded with glaring anachronisms, from its hero's sculpted body (clearly a product of the modern gym rather than a 19th Century English country manor) to the dialogue spoken by Williams, which Samuel L. Jackson delivers as if he just dropped in from 2016. Williams was a real historical character who aggressively campaigned against King Leopold's exploitation of the Congo, but I doubt that any actual Civil War veteran ever quipped: "Tell me something I didn't know!" And even the most forward-thinking American woman of the 1880s would have been unlikely to exclaim, as Jane does to Tarzan on their first meeting when he gets too familiar: "I don't think so, wild man!"

The Legend of Tarzan Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Legend of Tarzan was shot by British cinematographer Henry Braham (The Golden Compass). According to IMDb, the film was shot digitally with the Red Epic Dragon and finished on a 2K digital intermediate. Warner's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray displays the kind of bright and shiny image that Blu-ray fans have come to accept as routine in 2016, with copious detail, good contrast and an absence of noise, interference or artifacts. With so much of the film dependent on post-production manipulation to expand landscapes and insert CG wildlife, TLOT can't entirely avoid an occasionally synthetic appearance, e.g., in shots where Alexander Skarsgård is replaced with a digitally created double. The film's colors have also been heavily manipulated in post-production, with a palette that alternates between richly saturated vistas of green jungle and desaturated expanses of barren rock. Braham and director Yates have chosen to tint entire sequences with washes of sepia, yellow, grayish blue or purplish gray, and the pattern of these choices isn't always obvious. Both flashbacks and present-day sequences appear in similar hues at different points in the film, and the only apparent guiding principle is to keep the color changing. As far as I can tell, the Blu-ray accurately replicates the intended effect; whether that effect is effective or aesthetically pleasing is something I leave to the viewer's judgment.

Warner's theatrical division continues to leave vast expanses of unused space on a Blu-ray disc that could be used to enhance image quality (over 12 GB in this case), but the studio still manages to achieve a respectable average bitrate for TLOT of 25.647 Mbps, with a capable encode.

The Legend of Tarzan Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

TLOT arrives with a vigorous Dolby Atmos track that provides all the energy and action one would expect from a film conceived as a summer tentpole adventure. The jungle is alive with the sounds of its inhabitants, and when the apes approach, they're heard even when they're not seen, with grunts and roars from all directions (including overhead). Clayton's battle with the troop's alpha male is a thunderous affair, as is his ultimate encounter with Chief Mbonga. A daring escape from a riverboat through a herd of aggressive hippos combines machinery, water and animal noises. When rain falls, its presence is everywhere and its impact tumultuous. The climactic assault on Boma involves stampeding jungle animals bursting into and through wooden structures, massive gunfire and an explosive finale. In all of these sequences (and elsewhere), the ability of Dolby Atmos to position sound effects throughout the listening space is displayed to full advantage. The dialogue is clearly rendered and properly localized. The romantic orchestral score with its occasional Lion King-style vocals is by Rupert Gregson-Williams (Hotel Rwanda).

The Legend of Tarzan Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Tarzan Reborn (1080p; 1.78:1; 15:10): Yates and members of the cast and crew discuss their own history with the Tarzan legend and their efforts to reinvent the character and the story.



• Battles and Bare-Knuckle Brawls (1080p; 1.78:1): A breakdown of three major action scenes.
• Tarzan vs. Akut (5:15)
• Boma Stampede (4:53)
• Train Ambush (4:57)



• Tarzan and Jane's Unfailing Love (1080p; 1.78:1; 6:01): Yates, Robbie, Skarsgård and others discuss TLOT's approach to the relationship between John Clayton and Jane Porter.



• Creating the Virtual Jungle (1080p; 1.78:1; 15:16): Yates and others discuss TLOT's practical and CG effects, which allowed the production to shoot the entire film on soundstages, except for location footage photographed by a special team.



• Gabon to the Screen (1080p; 1.78:1; 2:28): Despite the title, this featurette isn't primarily about the African region from which TLOT derived its visuals. It's more of a random compilation of interview clips, some about Africa, some about conservation and some about how wonderful the film is.



• Stop Ivory (1080p; 1.78:1; 1:30): This PSA features Skarsgård and Robbie in a plea on behalf of the African elephant.



• Introductory Trailers: The film's trailer is not included. At startup, the disc plays a trailer for Kong: Skull Island and the new Warner promo for 4K discs.

The Legend of Tarzan Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

TLOT is dedicated to its producer, Jerry Weintraub, who passed away during production but can be seen speaking enthusiastically about the film in the Blu-ray extras. As producer and executive producer, Weintraub put his stamp on many memorable entertainments of the past forty years, including Nashville, The Karate Kid (and its sequels) and Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's trilogy—so I wish I could report that his final feature project was a masterpiece. Unfortunately, TLOT deserved its weak box office. For those who want to judge for themselves, Warner has produced a technically superior Blu-ray.