She, played by Margot Robbie, insists that she’s coming along too. Once the Big T gets back to the manor, we discover that he and Jane have a pretty 21st-century type relationship. Jackson), who wants to tag along with, um, Tarzan, and get solid evidence of illegal slave trading. He’s moved, though, by the entreaties of an African-American diplomat/investigative agent, George Washington Williams ( Samuel L. The ruse of an invitation to check out Belgian’s “progress” in the Congo is proffered to Tarzan-this is part of Rom’s trap-and Tarzan, I mean Lord Greystoke, I mean John Clayton, is disinclined to accept.
The movie finds Tarzan up in England, all civilized and respectable and Lord Greystoke-like, residing in his manor with wife Jane, something of a London celebrity and man of influence. Anyway, he’s the bad guy, and he’s first seen entering the deepest, foggiest, most spear-ridden caverns of the African jungle to bargain with fierce chief Mbonga ( Djimon Hounsou), who will give Rom all the diamonds he needs to finance his army … on delivery of his most hated enemy: Tarzan.
This fellow is played by Christoph Waltz and he carries with him a rosary that sometimes doubles as a short-distance noose, which isn’t a heavy-handed piece of symbolism at all, no way. But the wisdom of propagating any kind of white savior narrative during the charged era of Black Lives Matter surely must have seemed dubious, no?Īctually, yes, because throughout its brisk hour-and-forty-five minute running time, “The Legend of Tarzan” does things to reassure those viewers that care that the movie is indeed aware of its “problematics.” The movie begins with some texts evoking the colonization of what was in the late 19th century called the Belgian Congo, and of a nefarious scheme involving mercenaries, slave labor, and pilfered diamonds, all engineered by an envoy named Leon Rom. The upper-case “r” in a circle that appears below the name “ Tarzan” in the opening credits of this new movie, directed by “Harry Potter” stalwart David Yates from a script by Craig Brewer (of “ Hustle and Flow” and “ Black Snake Moan” renown, and no, I’m not kidding) and Adam Cozad (no idea), may have something to do with the movie’s raison d’etre-when one has a trademark, one must exploit it.