Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Derrick Gibbons An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

amesmonde 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.

witster18 As a kid, this film hit me like a ton of bricks. With all it's powerful emotions and tense moments, it was a bit much for an 11yr- old. Still, it seems to hold that power for older audiences."Greystoke:The Legend of Tarzan" stays pretty true to Burroughs work. The film is really divided into two segments. The first takes place in the jungle, and the second takes place in a more civilized(or so it seems) world of Victorian Mansions.The first half is unbelievably gripping. Emotional, Scary, and Adventurous. The second half is more a powerful drama, but for me the second-half is not only a bit under-rated, but quite deep and disturbing.Christopher Lambert of "Highlander" fame is excellent throughout - easily his best work.This is a tough watch for any animal lover. A tough watch in general. I think THAt is actually skewing the score here a bit. It's a good movie, not great, good, but I think it's considerably better than the score here. One of those films that you enjoy, but don't want to turn around and watch it again.It could be even better. There's a few moments in the second half that were a bit redundant, and that could've perhaps shaved about 10 minutes off of this and helped overall. BUT, I left this review simply because it's a bit better than 6.3 might lead you to believe. If you haven't seen it - do.69/100 A good forgotten adventure/drama from the 80's. The best Tarzan film - though that ain't sayin' much.You might like this if you liked: PLatoon(better), Rise of the Planet of the Apes(slightly better or even), or Project X(slightly below this).

disinterested_spectator 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).

jackasstrange 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