Plot; After being shipwrecked off the coast of Africa, a young aristocratic couple must survive in their harsh new environment. When the wife dies and the husband is killed, their young infant son is adopted into a community of apes and raised as one of them. But when, as a young man, he is found by the survivor of a doomed British expedition and learns of his true lineage, he is forced to make a choice between the comforts of a home he's never known and the savage jungles where he was raised.Tries to rise above the pulp roots of its progenitor and the B-movie muck of its siblings in a way that often parallels that of its fish out of water title character. It's a well made film backed by strong performances and a sincere attempt to tell an interesting and dramatic (at times melodramatic) story. If the victim is fun, then so be it, but you'll forgive me if I have been conditioned to expect at least a *little* action from the Lord of the jungle.Moving at the speed of cold molasses uphill, it still managed to hold my interest for the bulk of its 2+ hour runtime.

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)

Though a movie should always be judged on its own merits, yet it is impossible to watch a Tarzan movie without comparing it to the novel or other Tarzan movies. In comparing the book with a movie version, there is the question of fidelity to the original story and fidelity to the spirit of the novel.In this movie, it appears at first that we may be watching the first Tarzan movie to follow the story of the novel. Minor changes are to be expected, of course. But a jarring major change is when Tarzan meets Jane. In the novel, she is abducted by an ape and rescued by Tarzan. Though he cannot speak a human language, they fall in love. In this movie, he does not meet Jane until after he has learned speak English and has returned to England. As for the great ending of the novel, when Tarzan renounces his claim to be Lord Greystoke for the sake of the woman he loves, who has promised to marry his cousin, forget about it.But that is not the worst of it, for the real violence is to the spirit of the novel. In the book, Tarzan is the strong, silent type, who manages to maintain his noble bearing even in the jungle. In this movie, Tarzan runs about on all fours, oo-oo-ooing like an ape. As Nietzsche once pointed out, man regards the ape as either a laughing stock or a painful embarrassment, and that is what Tarzan seems to be. This is bad enough while he is in the jungle, but long after he has returned to England, two hours into the movie, he is still running about on all fours and making silly ape noises.It might be argued that this is more realistic. It probably is, for the Tarzan of this movie reminds me of the title character in "The Wild Child" (1970), based on the true story of Victor of Aveyron, a boy who had grown up wild in the forest. But if realism is what you are after, you should watch that movie instead of a movie about Tarzan anyway.There is a character on the Greystoke estate that is mentally deficient, and he reminds us of Tarzan, emphasizing the fact that much of Tarzan's behavior strikes us as moronic. Actually, one of the unresolved questions about Victor is whether he was a boy of normal intellect, which was impaired by his growing up without human contact, or whether he had been abandoned by his parents because he was mentally retarded to begin with. This movie almost makes us ask the same question about Tarzan.In other words, despite having the best production values of any Tarzan movie ever made, it is one of the worst. For all of their shortcomings, the Johnny Weissmuller movies remain the best, especially "Tarzan the Ape Man" (1932) and "Tarzan and His Mate" (1934).

I remember this movie well, though it has been a time since I have last seen it. First as a child, then as an adult, the movie stuck with me. I don't think the average person would realize just how much this movie has to offer at a glance, so hopefully someone will read some of the reviews and know just how good it is.This Tarzan is wild and savage like a beast, yet his heart is undeniably human. Is it love that makes the man or the darker side that lies just beneath the surface of the civilized man, and not quite that deep in Tarzan? Stumbling across it on IMDb, I really have the urge to watch this movie again. Let's see if NetFlix carries it!