Superhero Film Week: Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan

Well kiddies it is that time again when the week is up, the curtain runs down and the show is over. As we already had a pulp fiction hero prior it is only fair that we get one of Gold Key Comics a shot at the title as well.  Originated from the mind of Edgar Rice Burroughs I speak of his most famous of characters; The Lord of the Apes, Tarzan.   So grab your machete, tip your native guide well and do not start nothing with a silverback.  This is Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan.

 

But bananas are currency for all!

Sixth Earl of Greystoke: If he’s a Greystoke, I’ll know him at a spoiler!

A ship is thrashed about in the high seas leaving a nobleman and his wife stranded in the wilds of Africa.  Our nobleman is not a fop or does nothing as he builds his lady a home up in the far trees where she gives birth to their son.   But a handful of days later a family of apes encounter the couple and panic ensues on both sides and the young boy has become an orphan.  A large silverback gorilla takes the boy as a surrogate son to replace her own lost infant.

Dammit dad I said it was a black tie event!

Twenty years later, a Frenchman Capitaine Phillippe D’Arnot (Ian Holm of The Man in the Iron Mask, Alien, Time Bandits, Brazil, Fifth Element and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey) leads a band of English sportsmen and is deeply disgusted at their wanton need of blood sports as they shot Tarzan’s adopted mother.  Tarzan (Christopher Lambert of Highlander, Knight Movies, Fortress, The Hunted, Mortal Kombat and Mean Guns) stalks and kills them all but D’Arnot who was injured in a fall during this gun battle.  Tarzan takes D’Arnot to the tree house and nurses him back to health.  After examining documents and pictures D’Arnot realizes the young ape man is actually of royal birth and heir to the Earl of Greystoke.  The young man adapts quite quickly and even understands English in a few short months.  Will a man of nature be able to flourish in the land of civility, clothes and proper manners or will he long for the hills of Africa once more and renounce his title?

I had but a few comments to be made on this film.  This is Andie MacDowell’s first feature film and she was redubbed by Glenn Close because they felt her Southern accent was a bit much for the English teacher her character is.  I have heard countless ridicule aimed at the puppeteers of the Apes and that there was not enough real ape footage to balance the two. This was deeming FX prosthetics and animatronics guru Daniel Parker (Lifeforce, Little Shop of Horrors, Empire of the Sun and Hamlet) and EFX artist Rick Baker (The Howling, American Werewolf in London, Starman, Gorillas in the Mist,  Wolf and Escape from L.A.) some unjust comments.

THERE CAN BE ONLY...oh wait, wrong role. Sorry.

 What really dumbfounds me is how little people see of Christopher Lambert’s performance as the proclaimed lord of the apes.   His eyes and body language speaks volumes of a man taken from his normal element no matter how dangerous it may be and left to these strangers with their culture and mannerisms that are not his to speak of.   This man who spent almost his entire life learning of the ways of the jungle must now comport himself as a proper gentleman and be mindful of not only his surroundings but how others will view and judge him.   To me this is one of the better portrayals of Tarzan as well as one of the best interpretations of the written works.