An orphan child is brought up by apes and is latter introduced to his aristocratic family.Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes is based on the original writings of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Made in 1984 director Hugh Hudson offers an origin story made in a time before origin films were common place. Hudson offers the same epic operatic grandeur he'd brought to Chariots of Fire (1981). Uncredited screenwriter, Robert Towne (Chinatown), goes under pseudonym of his dog (P.H. Vazak) and second screenwriter Michael Austin offer an interesting three act affair, beginning in 1885 the downfall of his parents and Tarzan as a child, then as an adult assisting Capitaine Phillippe D'Arnot (played excellently by Ian Holm) out of the jungle and Tarzan back in the United Kingdom. Christopher Lambert' gives a fine performance as he learns to speak English and comes to terms with his heritage. Death hard hittingly runs though this adaptation, humans and animals are all put on the chopping board and it's quite a slow paced emotional journey. Notable are Ralph Richardson (in his last film) and Eric Langlois as preteen Tarzan. Interestingly, despite the title, the name Tarzan is never mentioned and Andie MacDowell's Jane is curiously dubbed by Glenn Close. Makeup genius Rick Baker's ape characters are for the most part convincing suit designs. With cinematography by John Alcott it's visual rich from the African jungle to Victorian Britain and the London Natural History Museum. Greystoke oozes atmosphere and even though a somber affair it leads to the film's unsurprising conclusion. It's visuals and time passages are far more interesting than the central character and this is debatably why Greystoke isn't critical revered as it possibly could have been. Overall, this is a serious retelling which takes a chance on effects (refreshingly pre CGI), storytelling and casting, they simply don't make films like this anymore.

Sometimes movies don't work particularly well. They seem to have much of the needed components but the end result falls flat or is off-target. That fits as the description for "Greystoke, the Legend of Tarzan" an ambitious and large-budgeted production of the the earlier 80s. It's directed by Hugh Hudson and stars Christopher Lambert, Ian Holm, Ralph Richardson, and debuts a young 20-something Andie MacDowell. The story is long-winded and without spirit. For starters, The ape scenes are mixed. Sometimes the difficulties of make-believe with puppeteering and live-action are out on display, as well as some poorly designed sets/stages. In this case at times ape- actors/costumes/puppets are woefully unbelieable, and the main set with the black panther looked tacky and man-made. Worse though, Lambert seems miscast physically. He has no muscularity and we are supposed to believe he is king of the apes!? Then the filmmakers capitalize on animal-call parlor tricks which wears thin over the runtime. However, Richardson and Holm together help prop the movie up to keep it away from failure. They are excellent in most scenes, and I especially enjoyed the early scenes of discovery and learning with forsaken Holms and Lambert characters as well the old Richardson remarking of his land and legacy. MacDowell's voice was strangely dubbed reportedly, and confirmed although she has a lesser role than first billing - maybe 35 min of screen time and is quietly on display dollishly. There needed to be more excitement, vitality, and physicality in the movie, although the filmmakers did achieve the sensory/feeling/touching part of primates pretty well. The internal conflict doesn't really involve, and there's no real antagonist or something to be lost. To note, Photography and music are competently put together. A mixed bag - 6/10

This film is the perfect example of a film that relied a lot in the build up then turned to be a monotonous bore until its very last 15 minutes or so. Nothing really happens in this vacuum of almost one hour, and it clearly prejudiced the film. In the start, we have all the stuff about the accident of 'Tarzan's parents, and then ahead we watch Tarzan's growing up and supposedly conquering the forest?, i guess? This part in the film is carefully treated, but still does not explain, or a least i didn't get, how Tarzan becomes the king of the apes. It suddenly shows him already as the king 30 minutes after his 'growing', but it not shows how he earn that title.And anyways, the acting by the lead actor is not at all that convincing. He is either sad or raging, but it never impacts the viewer in the way it is supposed to do. I missed a bit the Tarzan, in fact.The soundtrack is indeed good, love classical music, but in this film it was misused. I say that because it don't fitted the scenes, therefore it wasn't even necessary to this film. Not saying that a film don't needs music, but if the music is not at all put in a way that it will add something to it, it is just pointless.The cinematography is good i guess, good use of lightning in the interiors scenes of the Greystoke castle. The panoramic vision of the forest was good, but it was way too quickly exposed and also too generic.In a quick resume, Greystoke is a film that loses his breath in half the way, and just recovers it when it's too late. 5.7/10

Edgar Rice Burrough's classic character of John Clayton, Viscount Greystoke, aka Tarzan, Lord of the Apes springs vividly to life in the most accurate celluloid rendering of the original novel "Tarzan of the Apes" (given a somewhat more unwieldy title here - the only demerit against this spectacular adaptation).Christopher Lambert (of "Subway" and "Highlander" fame) heads a cast of luminaries such as Ian Holm, and - in sadly his farewell performance - the late Sir Ralsph Richardson as Tarzan's grandfather, Earl Greystoke. With superb direction by Hugh Hudson following his Oscar-conquering "Chariots of Fire", we are swept from the bleak moors of Scotland to the primal uplands of equitorial Africa and back again as we follow Clayton/Tarzan from his birth to shipwrecked aristos, through his youth amongst the great apes and to his return to, and disillusionment with, Western civilisation. A young Andie McDowall gives her debut performance as Jane Porter (of "Me Tarzan, you Jane" fame, although that line is not uttered here, or indeed, in any Tarzan story or movie much to the amazement of many), with a vocal performance dubbed by Glenn Close.Some of the greatest performances in the movie however come from the apes themselves, or rather the performers portraying the apes. The scenes of the young Tarzan cradling his dying ape mother, and later the adult Clayton discovering his ape father caged in the back of a museum, are extraordinarily poignant. No wonder Tarzan rejects the bland, soulless and vicious humans to return to the wild life among the apes: the simian characters show more humanity than some of the people on display here.I have seen some commentators calling this film "pretentious", usually whilst championing earlier Tarzans, such as the Johnny Weissmuller efforts of the '30s and '40s. All i can say to that is, if it is pretentious to actually stay true to the original text and character, then there is something strange going on. That's like championing Adam West's Batman over Christian Bale: baffling.This is a superb movie, and certainly the best portrayal of Burrough's story and characters on screen thus far. I simply can't see it being bettered any time soon, unless someone picks up the rights and does straight adaptations of Burrough's original novels and stories. I can't see that happening somehow, so i'm more than happy to stick with this.