Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984)

Very Cool!!!

good back-story, and good acting

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Released in 1984, "Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes" stars Christopher Lambert in the title role with Andie MacDowell as Jane, Ian Holm as his French friend, D'Arnot, and Ralph Richardson as his likable grandfather who's nearing senility. James Fox is on hand as Tarzan's stuffy "high class" nemesis in Scotland.One thing that sets "Greystoke" apart from previous Tarzan flicks is that the filmmakers were determined to depict him the way Burroughs did in the books, as an extremely intelligent, talented man who happened to grow-up with a tribe of apes and not as a dim-witted wild man who had a hard time construing five proper words in a sentence. Lambert was only 26 during filming (but looks & acts more mature) and perfect for the role. This is a more realistic version of the ape man, moving away from the whole "me Tarzan, you Jane" cliché that (presumably) started with the Weissmuller flicks, which explains why the movie's called "Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan" and not "Tarzan..." The first half is the best part, shot on location in lush West Africa (and, presumably, some parts in the studio, although you can't tell). While the apes are people in ape costumes they look amazingly realistic, particularly considering "Planet of the Apes" came out a mere 16 years earlier. The progress made with F/X in that short time is amazing (fifteen years later and CGI would take over most F/X). There are a number of great scenes, like Tarzan's fight-to-the-death with the ape leader and D'Arnot's introduction to Tarzan with a couple of curious apes behind him, causing D'Arnot to pass out.The second half switches to Scotland and this is where most people have a problem with the film. They say it's too slow, blah, blah, blah, and they're right to a point. I think the last discussion at the mansion before going back to Africa could've been cut almost entirely. After all, by this point we've already seen Clayton (Tarzan) confront Fox' character multiple times with intimidating animal sounds. So it was redundant and unnecessary. Nevertheless, I think the second half reveals a lot of character-defining stuff about Tarzan: His loving kinship with his grandfather, his defense of the lowly, his uncanny intelligence & talents, his compassion for encaged creatures, his passion for Jane and his reviling of the pompous.MacDowell is fine in the role, even stunning, and I didn't even know she was dubbed by Glenn Close until someone pointed it out, which shows they did a quality job with the dubbing. MacDowell is one of the reasons the love scene works so spectacularly, possibly my favorite love scene in the history of cinema. She and Lambert had great chemistry.The ending is a turn-off until you think about it ***MILD SPOILER***: Tarzan's rejection of his ancestral estate in Scotland is akin to him rejecting Western Civilization in general. I'm assuming that Jane would decide to later join him in Africa. Too bad there wasn't a sequel (I should add that 1998's "Tarzan and the Lost City" is SAID to be a sequel of this film, but it lacks Lambert and MacDowell in the key roles, plus it's mediocre by comparison, yet still worth checking out if you're a Tarzan fan).The film runs 143 minutes and was shot in Cameroon, Africa, and England.GRADE: A- (keeping in mind that Tarzan is my all-time favorite fictional hero)

A bit of an oddity, this: a few years ago I read through the original Burroughs novel and was eager to find out how this adaptation held up. The answer is that it follows the story in the book extremely closely – especially in the first half – depicting events with a kind of vicious believability that's miles away from the chest-beating, vine-swinging Tarzans of old.It's not entirely accurate – there's far less of that grisly business involving the hostile tribesmen – but what I saw, I liked. The apes are played by men in pretty convincing suits, and watching Tarzan growing up to become lord of the jungle is a lot of fun. In addition to that, the film plays an ace in the casting of Ian Holm as the Belgian captain who 'civilises' Tarzan. Holm gives a subtle, mannered, quite excellent performance, one that's filled with emotion and is the best in the entire movie.That's not to say that Christopher Lambert, as the title character, is bad. It's a memorable debut turn, carefully judged and entirely physical. He gets the movements and mannerisms of a jungle-born man just right, which is why it's a shame that the ridiculous decision was made to rub him over with animal noises. If he's angry, a lion's roar comes out of his mouth, etc. The filmmakers rely on such things a lot, especially in the second half, and it's a real shame.That's not the only problem with the second half. Once the action shifts to England, the pacing slows right down and the film feels devoid of incident. Andie MacDowell is fairly uninteresting in playing an insipid Jane, and even a final, unexpectedly touching turn from Ralph Richardson fails to liven things up. As I remember, this part of the film deviates quite substantially from the book, and it suffers for it. Basically we get an hour of Tarzan wandering around his mansion and it's all rather depressing. It's a shame, because earlier on a great deal of effort was made to bring those jungle scenes to life, and it all fizzles out at the end.

Okay - this movie starts with Tarzan's parents getting killed after experiencing a shipwreck that gets them to Africa - after apes kill his parents Tarzan gets brought up as an ape - now this is where the bad things happen - you have 1 hour or so of apes behaving typically with Tarzan, they spent too long doing this and I would rather them get to the point. Tarzan is now a fully grown man and earns his title as ruler of the apes, an expedition comes along and all but 1 die - this guy played by Ian Holm then starts to teach Tarzan how to speak English, maybe it's just me but I can't suspend my disbelief to buy that he learns English within a few months.Then Tarzan and Phillipe (the person teaching him) decide to bring him to his family. Tarzan then meets his grandfather when he's back at England, he tries to adapt from ape society to high-class society (which is obviously not an easy task) and falls in love with a woman named Jane. Soon the grandfather experiences an accidental death. This pushes Tarzan over the edge because he then has to run the estate as his grandfather did. He then finds the ape that raised him in captivity and both behave like apes then one person shoots the ape, Tarzan then (in a way) begs to go back to Africa because he can't take the responsibility of what was being presented to him and he goes back.In my opinion this movie really picks up into the good parts of the movie when dialogue occurs. It definitely took too long with the ape part it said what was needed to be said about 15 minutes into the thing. Christopher Lambert is definitely the best performance out of the whole thing. It's decent entertainment, at least.

The 1980s are now often thought of as an era of cheesiness, naïve optimism and style over substance. But this distinctly 80s take on Edgar Rice Burrough's oft-adapted Tarzan stories is an attempt at imbuing the character with some dignity, dropping all reference to the rather silly Tarzan moniker itself in all but the title, and focusing on the ape-man's intelligence and humanity. The screenplay is by none other than the acclaimed writer of Chinatown, Robert Towne.Towne however is credited under his dog's name, something he insisted upon when he was fired as director. Instead that job went to Hugh Hudson, on his first project since 1981's Best Picture Chariots of Fire. Hudson was not an outstanding director, although his slow, brooding style is to the picture's benefit. In the jungle scenes he allows long takes for Lambert and the apes to bring out their characters, with a lot of close-ups of hands and faces, revealing the thought processes going on in this lengthy segment without dialogue. Hudson also handles space well. Upon Lambert's arrival at the Greystoke mansion, props and walls at the side of the image make the place look cramped in spite of its opulence.Christopher Lambert was one of those 80s stars whose impressive physicality seemed to outstrip his acting talent. However, the role of a man brought up in the wild seems to bring out the best in him. He really gets that mix of animalistic manner and deep humanity. The only real downside is his creepy eyes, which make it hard to take him seriously. The best performances here are in the supporting roles. Ian Holm begins as a comical little figure, but eventually shows a real emotional intensity. You can't help but love an Ian Holm character. Then there is Ralph Richardson as Lord Greystoke. Richardson was at the very end of his life, and surely knew it. He draws upon that knowledge to create a performance of real bittersweet power, a portrait of a man doing things for the last time.Unfortunately, the picture is let down by a silly naivety that is very much of the time. The ape make-up is not bad, and a good attempt has been made to bring human expressions to realistic-looking chimp faces, but sometimes the effect is overdone, such as the cartoonish "bad" ape with whom Lambert has a rivalry. In spite of the emotive tack, the narrative is sometimes lacking in reverence. For example, when Jack Clayton realises his wife has dead, it's only seconds later before an ape shambles in and begins battering the poor man. Sometimes it's necessary to compress time in screenplays, but here the move is too quick, ruining the moment – it would have been better if we'd cut to Jack burying his wife, and then for the ape to attack. And as for Andie MacDowell's scarlet dress – did no-one on the production realise what a faux pas such a colour would have been at that time? It's a pity, because Greystoke is incredibly moving and thoughtful at times. It is essentially a rather wasted opportunity. Somewhere in there is an intelligent masterpiece. It's just buried under some rather obvious flaws that could easily have been fixed. And yet, the fact that the movie has any degree of depth or dignity is in itself quite an achievement, considering the simplicity of the average Tarzan flick.