Cinemavenger
The funniest, nastiest movie reviews anywhere.
The Legend of Tarzan
Even though they've been making Tarzan movies since 1918, no one ever talks about the giant, red baboon ass in the room . . . that Tarzan is an ape fucker.
Think about it. John Clayton a/k/a Lord Greystoke a/k/a Tarzan is adopted as a baby by a troop of gorillas. The gorillas raise him as one of their own. In virtually every version of the story, Tarzan is a full-grown man before he first sees another human. Are you trying to tell me that all through puberty, adolescence and adulthood Tarzan never got laid? That's a bunch of bonobo shit! I don't care how much Jane and the rest of the world want to turn a blind eye, Tarzan got his dick wet gorilla-style.
Other than being a big fan of bestiality - although, if you believe you yourself are a beast is it really bestiality? - Tarzan is a musclebound, good-lookin' White boy who hooks up with a hottie named Jane. Those are the constants. In the 1930s and 1940s, Johnny "Aryan The Rock" Weissmuller donned the loincloth. In the 40s and 50s it was Lex "Bob" Barker swinging through the trees. Miles "To Go Before I Sleep" O'Keefe got to paw at Bo "10" Derek's Jane in 1981. A few years later in '84, Christopher "The Highlander" Lambert's Tarzan loved gorilla-fuckin' so much he chooses the jungle over Jane. And in 1998, Casper Van "Wilder" Dien got a Jane played by a real Jane, "Far From Plain" Jane March.
Now it's Alexander "The Not So Great" Skarsgard's turn, and his take on the character in The Legend of Tarzan is so mopey it might qualify as the first emo-Tarzan ever. Even though he's already a rich lord back in England and married to a volcano hot Jane (Margot Robbie "The Sexy Robot") when the movie starts, he's quickly lured back to Africa by Samuel L. "Jesse" Jackson's proto-UN-rights-abuse-investigator. Because nothing says carefree, rollicking, Saturday matinee adventure like tracking down slave traders.
The Big Bad slaver is played by Tarantino darling Christoph "Minute" Waltz, and Tarzan, of course, fights him. To kill time along the way, Tarzan also fights his CGI gorilla brother, the leader of a jungle tribe whose grudge against Tarzan goes back a decade, and Skarsgard's own more-wooden-than-a-cigar-store-Indian acting.
Skarsgard's broad shoulders don't bear all the blame. It looks like Director David "I Made The Worst Harry Potter Movies" Yates and his go-to Editor, Mark "Bad" Day, cut this piece of elephant dung together using machetes. From minute to minute, you can't tell if you're in the present or a flashback, whether the spear that just got chucked was by a good guy or a villain.
Fuck you, Edgar Rice Burroughs.
November 11, 2016 New video release review rather than theatrical release review because there's a special circle in Hell reserved for people who go to the movies all feverish and contagious.