By Susan Granger
Special to WestportNow
Edgar Rice Burroughs’ mythic 19th century superhero comes alive again in “The Legend of Tarzan,” a fun, old-fashioned action-packed adventure that touches on colonialism, racism, even sexism.
From the moment I saw Alexander Skarsgard emerge bare-chested as the fanged vampire on HBO’s “True Blood,” I thought he’d make a wonderful Tarzan – and, obviously, I was not alone.
Working from Burroughs’ 1912 concept, screenwriters Adam Cozad and Craig Brewer, guided by director David Yates, amplify Skarsgard’s physicality by enhancing his John Clayton, a.k.a. Lord Greystoke, with the emotionally restrained melancholy of a man caught between two cultures – a quality that previous Tarzans, like Christopher Lambert and Johnny Weissmuller, were unable to capture.
Raised in the jungle by apes, his primal instincts are impeccable; educated by European civilization, his judgment is acute.
The plot revolves around the determination of Belgium’s King Leopold II to exploit and enslave the Congo under the guise of colonialism. Working for the King, villainous Leon Rom (Christoph Waltz) concocts a deceptive conspiracy to bring Lord Greystoke back to his native country, arousing the suspicions of American diplomatic envoy George Washington Williams (Samuel L. Jackson).
Soon after Greystoke, his smart ‘n’ spunky wife Jane (Margot Robbie) and perceptive Dr. Williams arrive, they discover the sinister scheme and battle overwhelming odds, venturing onto the vast plains and into Tarzan’s jungle habitat.
After helming the final four “Harry Potter” films, director David Yates knows how to juggle the intricacies of narrative story-telling with visually sweeping, vine-swinging excitement.
Yates, cinematographer Henry Braham and production designer Stuart Craig reap amazing authenticity from locations in Gabon on which CGI animals (gorillas, lions, elephants, cape buffalo and crocs) are superimposed.
FYI: Heroic African-American George Washington Williams was introduced in historian Adam Hochschild’s “King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa” (1998).
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Legend of Tarzan” is an escapist, highly entertaining 8, the best live-action Tarzan epic in decades.
In “The Shallows,” Nancy (Blake Lively) is a medical school drop-out who decides to visit and surf on her late mother’s favorite Mexican beach: a remote, jungle-enshrouded crescent-shaped cove that’s almost totally deserted.
After making a few phone calls to check-in with her dad and younger sister in Galveston, Texas, Nancy zips on the top of her wetsuit, tethers her foot to her surfboard and wades into the waves.
A strong swimmer, Nancy soon catches up with two Spanish-speaking dudes who are also enjoying the exhilarating surf; one is wearing a GoPro camera on his head.
After a while, Nancy returns to the beach to munch a late lunch she’d stored in her backpack and returns to the clear, turquoise-blue lagoon for one last run, just as the guys head home.
That’s when an enormous shark surfaces. It’s a Great White that’s been lured close to shore, chomping on the carcass of a dead whale. With Nancy now in his feeding grounds, he bites her thigh.
Shark facts: sharks explore with their mouths and teeth, making surfers particularly vulnerable, far more than swimmers, because they paddle further from shore, dangling their limbs the water.
To escape the encircling fin, ever-resourceful Nancy, whose leg is bleeding profusely, crawls up on a jagged rock about 200 yards off-shore – with only a wounded seagull for company. It’s low tide, so she’s safe – temporarily. When the tide reverses, the sea will engulf her precarious perch.
Scripted by Anthony Jaswinski, scored by composer Marco Baltrami, and directed by Jaume Collet-Serra (“Non-Stop”) it’s a tension-packed survival thriller – with terrific underwater shots. Bikini-clad Blake Lively (TV’s “Gossip Girl”) did 75% of her own stunts but, unfortunately, the denouement falls flat.
On the Granger Gauge, “The Shallows” is a scary, suspenseful 6, causing a box-office feeding frenzy.
“Swiss Army Man” is a bizarrely twisted tale about a shipwreck survivor, Hank (Paul Dano), stranded on a deserted beach.
Just as despondent he tries to hang himself, Hank spies a corpse washing up on the sand. It’s Manny (Daniel Radcliffe), who soon becomes the castaway’s confidante/best friend.
While Manny’s flatulence initially annoys Hank, he soon finds it useful – mounting Manny’s back, allowing his expelled gas to propel them across the waves like a motorboat. That leads to other experiments in which Manny’s inert body proves a useful tool to ignite fires, chop wood, and hunt game.
In Hank’s delirious imagination, Manny not talks with him but guides him in an extended exploration of masturbation and other existentialist possibilities of life as they’re trekking through the woods.
Music video co-writers/directors Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, collectively calling themselves Daniels, create a darkly humorous, surreal concept that’s wildly imaginative until it becomes gratingly irritating and contrived.
Supposedly, it all began as a weird joke that was developed at the Sundance Institute’s Screenwriting and Directing Labs, drawing on ideas generated in their 2011 short films “Dogboarding,” “Puppets,” “My Best Friend’s Sweating” and amplified in “Pockets” (2012).
When Paul Dano (“Love & Mercy”) and Daniel Radcliffe (“Harry Potter”) signed on, the amiable collaboration grew to include cinematographer Larkin Seipe, filming on Half Moon Bay, south of San Francisco, and in the redwood forests outside Eureka, California.
As the uniquely stylized ‘bromance’ blossomed, an underwater kiss seemed inevitable, and Daniel Radcliffe only used a stunt double for the scene in which Manny is attacked by a vicious raccoon.
On the Granger Gauge, “Swiss Army Man” is a strange, fart-filled 4, an absurdist fantasy.
( Editor’s Note: Westport resident Susan Granger grew up in Hollywood, studied journalism with Pierre Salinger at Mills College, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism. In addition to writing for newspapers and magazines, she has been on radio/television as an anchorwoman and movie/drama critic for many years. See her reviews at www.susangranger.com.)
