I have mixed feelings about Greystoke.
I haven't read all the Tarzan books by any means, but I must have read at least a dozen or so and, to my way of thinking, none of the myriad screen Tarzans came close to capturing the character in Burroughs' books.
And then along came Greystoke, and gave me the exact origin I had read - for the first time, there were Kala and Kerchak, there was young Tarzan nurtured by the great ape, a weakling child, but coming into his own when, as an adult, he was able to use his greater brain, teaching himself to read on finding the ruined home of his parents... plus the apes looked and moved like apes, and not like humans in monkey suits.
The first half of the movie was wonderful.
Then "civilisation" found him and took him back to England, and a slow moving and soap opera-ish second half undid most of the good work of the first half. Don't get me wrong, there were good elements - the touching relationships with Ralph Richardson and the old ape, for instance - but, by heavens, it dragged.
Lambert was excellent. Holm was very good. The apes were brilliant. The stuffed panther - meh, not so much.
I haven't read all the Tarzan books by any means, but I must have read at least a dozen or so and, to my way of thinking, none of the myriad screen Tarzans came close to capturing the character in Burroughs' books.
And then along came Greystoke, and gave me the exact origin I had read - for the first time, there were Kala and Kerchak, there was young Tarzan nurtured by the great ape, a weakling child, but coming into his own when, as an adult, he was able to use his greater brain, teaching himself to read on finding the ruined home of his parents... plus the apes looked and moved like apes, and not like humans in monkey suits.
The first half of the movie was wonderful.
Then "civilisation" found him and took him back to England, and a slow moving and soap opera-ish second half undid most of the good work of the first half. Don't get me wrong, there were good elements - the touching relationships with Ralph Richardson and the old ape, for instance - but, by heavens, it dragged.
Lambert was excellent. Holm was very good. The apes were brilliant. The stuffed panther - meh, not so much.