Beginning with some back story about the division of the Congo to the colonial powers in the latter part of the 19th century and King Leopold of Belgium’s attempts to extract the rich natural resources, in particular diamonds, from the land but after his initial attempts prove unfruitful he decides to send his envoy Leon Rom (Christoph Waltz) to take control of proceedings but when his exposition is wiped out a local tribal leader, Mbonga (Djimon Hounsou), exchanges his life and the diamonds for the presentation of Tarzan in front of the chief as they have unfinished historical business.

Tarzan (Alexander Skarsgard)  is living in England as John Clayton III or Lord Greystoke with his wife Jane porter (Margot Robbie) and his is invited by the Belgian king to visit the city of Boma in the Congo to act as an intermediary in the colonization of the area given that it was where he was born and raised. (I won’t go into the back story of his childhood, we all know it) He refuses but is convinced by George Washington Williams (Samuel L. Jackson), a consort from America to travel as he suspect that the Belgium King is using the local population as slaves, so begins the adventure when Tarzan must face Mbonga, save the locals, his wife and the creatures of the jungle from the evils of the Belgians and the unscrupulous Rom with a little help from Williams and some other, old friends along the way.

It’s an old story receiving a modern twist but the problem is that, despite the modernisation there’s nothing new. It’s a dated tale, told in older, very different times which does not really work in the modern era of movies. Tarzan and his friends are good, the Belgians are bad. Waltz plays a good villain, Robbie plays a tough, spirited damsel in distress, Jackson has the funny quips when needed and Hollywood still struggles with bringing racial stereotyping into the modern era. It felt that the only reason Jackson was even in the movie was to avoid the backlash the movie would have received otherwise. Swap Tarzan and the jungle for Spiderman and the streets of New York and we’ve seen the impressive swinging before. The CGI and interaction with the animals was good but was done better by the recent Jungle Book movie but some of the green screen scenes were unbelievably bad and I’m really struggling to find anything unique about the movie.

It’s not a bad film by any means and it’s two hours or so of decent entertainment so keep your expectations low and you’ll be okay but is it wrong that I kept wanting to shout out “Here come the Belgians” in a Stuart Hall, International Knock Out style all the way through the movie?

DJ Speaks Rating: 5 Out of 10