‘The Legend of Tarzan’ is lost in a jungle of CGI animals, barely human performances

Him Tarzan, it lame.

"The Legend of Tarzan" has finally brought the swinging hero back to movie screens — the first big-studio adaptation since Disney's animated feature back in 1999.

This version is just as cartoony, only not as much fun.

Unsure of which story to tell, the film cuts between two of them. In the first, we get a flashback to Tarzan's origins, showing how the infant heir of a noble English family was orphaned and left in the jungle to be raised by apes.

In the second, we follow the adult Tarzan, now living in his manor house in England with his American wife, Jane. But there's trouble back in Africa, and so he must return — and face an old enemy.

The decision to tell twin tales is understandable, but also undercuts the movie; just when we get interested in one, we cut to another. It's difficult to get fully involved, especially when every animal is so obviously just computer-generated fur and fangs.

The supposedly human stars aren't much more believable. Alexander Skarsgard is more abs than actor as the ape man, and Margot Robbie's Jane looks about as 19th-Century as an Aussie surfer girl. Together, they produce all the real-life passion of an Abercrombie & Fitch ad.

The supporting actors add a little more life.

But only a little.

 

 

As an African-American diplomat, Samuel L. Jackson is, at best, a PG-13-version of his usual mutha-lovin' self, while villain Christoph Waltz is reduced to a couple of leftover hisses from "Inglourious Basterds."

There are a couple of man-on-gorilla fights, and the usual jumping around from vine to vine. It all goes by too fast to be really thrilling, though, and you'll hear more and better Tarzan yells in a rerun of "The Carol Burnett Show."

And, sorry, much as they try to update the material, the story's old colonialist message — great white man saves black Africa — can't be disguised by a few PC twists and some slams at Belgium's evil King Leopold.

"The Legend of Tarzan" has some gorgeous scenic wonders — of which a stripped-to-his-loincloth Skarsgard is only one. In the end, though, it's really just some pretty pictures, and some computer-generated animals.

And everything else is simply monkey business.