Tarzan english movie Review

Tarzan Review

Who isn't familiar with Tarzan, created by Edgar Rice Burroughs? The plot is inconsequential as it is the jungle boy's experience of living with the apes that is the crux of Tarzan's story.

Tarzan who?

Tarzan! The "ape with no fur".

This is how; director Reinhard Klooss introduces little JJ Greystoke, a boy from New York who survives a helicopter crash that leaves him orphaned in the African jungle.

Apparently, JJ's father John Greystoke, the CEO of Greystoke Energies, was exploring the jungles in search of the legendary meteorite that had crashed 70 million years ago. The meteorite is said to be the source of boundless energy. It is at the fag end of this expedition that the helicopter crashed due to some magnetic interference.

After the crash, Kala the silverback gorilla, who had lost her mate and baby the previous night, finds little JJ. She takes him under her tutelage and soon the entire tribe treats him as one of their own.

Years into the wilderness the little boy turns into a feral youth playing with fellow apes, swinging around the jungle with gay abandon.

Tarzan soon realises there is more to life, when one fine day he spots young Jane Porter who is in the jungle to visit her explorer father at the camp that was once the Greystoke compound.

After being chased by an ostrich-like bird and then bitten by a snake, Tarzan saves Jane but she barely remembers the incident.

But then destiny reunites the two of them when years later she returns as an adult determined to save the environment. This time she is accompanied by William Clayton who now runs Greystoke Energies and brings with him a mercenary army to locate and secure the meteorite.

In the meanwhile, romance brews between the two as they spend some adventurous moments in the jungle.

And they have an equal share of obstacles, which Tarzan naturally overcomes.

The voices lent by the star cast suits the characters to the perfect tone. Craig Gardner as the four-year-old JJ along with Anton Zetterholm who lends his voice as the teenage Tarzan, Kellan Lutz as the muscular adult Tarzan, Spencer Locke as Jane, Mark Deklin as John Greystoke, Jaime Ray Newman as Alice and Trevor St John as Clayton -- all do a very good job.

Though the Burroughs' series have always entertained readers, unfortunately this version is bland fare.

The script moves on an even keel with often seen plot points. The tale meanders without any aim or motivation. The story telling is synthetic and the several action sequences are ineffectual.

Also, the character progression of Tarzan from feral to the English speaking lad is so superficial and unbelievable that it takes away the charm from the character.

Visually too, the motion capture technology that is used for animating the film is a bit fuzzy in the 3D version. The lensing is an issue, there are certain frames where the creatures were blown out of proportion making them seem like monsters, especially the crabs and spiders. Also the tentacle monster in the mysterious terrain that Tarzan and Jane saunter into, seemed more like winding twigs than a frightening monster.

Overall, this chattering and blabbering Tarzan, hardly yodels leaving his fans disappointed

Brick Mansions Review

Here's another film after "Transcendence" that is established in a dystopian setting. But unlike "Transcendence", this one is an action film, packed with Parkour thrills, a bit of romance and city politics.

Set in the hard-to-conceive near future - 2018, a news clip bookends the account that summarizes the situation at Brick Mansions, an impoverished ghetto, a land of undesirables that is infested with the underworld activities in the outskirts of Detroit.

The initial high-octane action by an ex-convict Lino (David Belle) wrecking a drug deal that is controlled by a ruthless gangster-cum-drug dealer Tremaine Alexander (RZA) and then using his Parkour skills to escape the thugs chasing him, is the precursor of the events to follow. It is one of the classiest exploits that sets the ball rolling.

The narration of the saga starts off with a bomb along with a timer device being stolen by gangsters. They then hold the city to ransom by threatening to blow it up.

Detective Damien Collier (late Paul Walker) of the Detroit Police Force is sent as an undercover cop to ferret out Tremaine from Brick Mansions. This is a chance he would not want to miss, since Tremaine had gunned down his father years ago. In fact, Damien is cautioned by his grandfather that, "revenge and justice are not the same thing". Nevertheless, Damien is on the mission.

So in a planned scheme, he befriends Lino and together they undertake the mission to defuse the bomb and avoid calamity.

Once the motivations are established, majority of the time is spent with the principle actors running around a giant complex pulping the villains. Everything that follows is fast and furious. The volley of punches, the car chases, the stunts and explosions make up for a bulk of the screen time.

Paul Walker as Collier is earnest in his histrionics. He delivers every line with conviction and also handles the character's intensely physical aspects with ease. He is ably supported by David Belle. In fact, David steals the show with his agile and swift run-jump-punch acrobatic movements. Together, they share an instant and easy-going chemistry although they hardly speak for most of the film.

But it is the rapper-turned-actor RZA as Tremaine who is the surprise package. He supplies the requisite threat with bluntness delivering messages of deficiency and societal disparity and yet transcends the character to a graph that you will not hate.

Catalina Denis as Lola, Lino's ex-girlfriend and Ayisha Issa as the sadistic, leather-and-chain clad Tremaine's side-kick are the competitive female counterparts, who hold their stead.

The razor-sharp editing with quick jagged cuts makes the action look so fluid and continuous that it is a treat to the eye. The camera-work especially the low and top angle shots that are frequently used giving this film an eclectic field.

The script, by writer-producer Luc Besson, is a remake of his 2004 successful French thriller "District B13", which in turn has the main plot of the city being bombed, borrowed from the 1981 released film, "Escape from New York".

Unfortunately this adaptation has glaring blunders. To start with, at the very onset the setting is mentioned as a 20 acre area which makes the district just a small piece of land. Then, the place is sparsely populated and finally there is no mode of telecommunication projected in the film.

Overall, for first time director Camille Delamarre, "Brick Mansions" carries the uncanny stamp of a hastily made mediocre Luc Besson film. However, it is indeed a great tribute to Paul Walker as it is his last film. He died Nov 30, 2013 in a car accident.