The Legend of Tarzan (2016)

Tarzan is living in late 1800s London, married to Jane, and they go back to the Congo on a diplomatic mission. Here's what I liked: the gorgeous jungle, the love story, the zoology, the swinging through the trees, people and animals surging through the forest at top speed, the stampede, spunky Jane, old ships and trains, and its runtime being under two hours. Here's what I didn't like: so many battles and too much dialogue explaining too much back story.

On my first day of film school, over thirty years ago, the head of the program warned us not to write/produce lots of dialogue explaining back story. "Show, don't tell," rule one for most artists, is broken way too many times here.

The stars are Alexander Skarsgård (last in The Diary of a Teenage Girl) as hunky Tarzan/John, Margot Robbie (Whiskey Tango Foxtrot) as lovely/brave Jane, Christoph Waltz (Spectre) as the villain, Samuel L. Jackson (The Hateful Eight) as the good natured sidekick, and Djimon Hounsou (profiled in How to Train Your Dragon 2) as one of the African chiefs.

David Yates, who helmed Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I, which I saw, and the sequel, which I didn't, is in the director's chair here. Adam Cozad is top billed for the screenplay and second billed for the story (he wrote one of the Jack Ryan movies before this) and Craig Brewer (the reverse on these credits) was considered as director before Yates got the job. Brewer directed and wrote Hustle & Flow (2005) and some other things.

Director of photography Henry Braham's gorgeous pictures ease the pain of the script, which does, to be fair, have some good lines in it. Among Braham's other credits are Waking Ned Devine (1998), the beautifully shot fantasy The Golden Compass (2007), and Everybody's Fine. The country of Gabon, along Africa's west coast, stands in for neighboring Congo. It's not hard to predict nominations for the cinematography at the end of the year.

Rupert Gregson-Williams, brother of fellow composer Harry, has a long resumé, including Hotel Rwanda (2004), Just Go With It, and 38 episodes of Veep, and has written a good score which can be streamed here. I particularly like the African vocals in the first track.

Imdb has lots of trivia, especially about 6'4" Skarsgård's diet and exercise plans to get cut for the mostly shirtless role, but my favorite trivia item is that in "formal dining," leaving your flatware crossed means you didn't enjoy the meal, which I didn't know. I did know that placing them side by side means you're finished. Watch for that scene if you decide to see this.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics' average of 35% and its audiences' 66 may have dampened my enthusiasm, but Jack thought less of it than I did, even though when we first saw the trailer in June we were both eager to see it. The movie is down to just a few screenings in these parts (we saw it in 2D this afternoon) and its DVD release is estimated for October of 2016. Parents, there's quite a bit of fighting and violence.