Looking at the Tomato-meter after seeing the film, it is hard to imagine how a film with so much behind it, goes so wrong. The casting of Christoph Waltz, Samuel L. Jackson, Margot Robbie, Djimon Honsou and Alexander Skarsgard is great, the cinematography is even better, the special effects are quite excellent, and the film sidesteps the clumsiness of a typical origin story. You look back and you wonder how a chest pounding example of the Hollywood studio system can go so wrong, the answer has always been the writing.

3/4 of the film I found enjoyable. The rushed last quarter whether lazily written or due to production problems unbounds itself from the pacing and tone the film has spent for 90 minutes. Characters take a leave of logic and head for the horizon or in this case, the end of the penultimate reel. 1.6 million a minute only gets you so far.

Directed by David Yates in his only post-Potter film, the film is a fitting salute to the wonder of the late hollywood production magnate Jerry Weintraub dedicated in credits. There is a lot of potential laid-out in this film that takes a shot in and out of a tasteful period but is trampled over like a climactic stampede likely by its own producers. The weight of a legendary character like Tarzan demands so much, much like Skarsgard’s rigorous diet, had they just allowed the film to breathe a little at the end it could have been so much more. Instead the third act stumble coincidentally underscored by the late leave of its greenlighting producer leaves a viewer to babble about the mess of modern hollywood movie making until the next worthwhile installment comes along.

Continuum Scale: 0

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