The Legend of Tarzan

There’s not much you can do with Tarzan that hasn’t already been done, although The Legend of Tarzan does give one of the most iconic big-screen heroes a thoroughly modern makeover.

This slick and stylish adaptation of the works by Edgar Rice Burroughs essentially takes the same approach as the recent Sherlock Holmes franchise — for better and worse — turning the classic character into a contemporary action hero while flooding the screen with visual effects and technical gimmicks at the expense of subtlety or surprise.

The story begins with Tarzan (Alexander Skarsgard) having long ago left the jungles of the Congo, where he was raised by gorillas, for a job as a British diplomat under the name Lord Greystoke. He returns to Africa with his wife, Jane (Margot Robbie), and an American envoy (Samuel L. Jackson) ostensibly as part of a trade mission.

Instead, he’s lured into a trap by Leon Rom (Christoph Waltz), a representative of the corrupt Belgian king who wants to enslave the Congolese people and mine their land for diamonds. With his primal instincts reawakened, Tarzan tries to repair his contentious relationship with a tribal chief (Djimon Hounsou) and the jungle-dwelling animals to enlist their help in preserving his homeland.

Under the direction of David Yates (who helmed the last four Harry Potter films), The Legend of Tarzan is quite a technical achievement, with seamless effects (including a full zoo’s worth of jungle animals) and well-choreographed action sequences, especially in the second half.

The film introduces a more buffed-up, loincloth-free version of the title character, although the signature yell and vine-swinging antics are still in the mix.

The screenplay manages to put a fresh spin on very familiar material, as long as you can accept considerable historical license in the story’s critique of European colonialism during the rise of the diamond trade and the railroad in 19th century central Africa.

The film is a far cry from the days when Johnny Weissmuller turned the character into a cheesy pop-culture icon. And thankfully, it’s also a dramatic improvement over the most recent cinematic depiction of the character in a 2013 version starring Kellan Lutz.

Of course, that’s faint praise at best for a film that mostly manipulates the Tarzan mythology — or “legend,” if you will — into a summer blockbuster framework, instead of the other way around.

Rated PG-13, 110 minutes.