Legend Of Tarzan only spends a little time on the character's jungle origin story, revealed in brief flashbacks. The filmmakers assume audiences know these beats, and don't need them spelled out. (If only the people behind the last half-dozen Batman-related movies were as restrained.) But as a result, it starts with a protagonist who's redefined himself as a repressed, civilized Victorian gentleman, so separated from everything that defines his character that the film spends half its runtime either building a version of Tarzan that's meant to disappear moments later, or working to re-establish him in his element. Initially, there's so little Tarzan in this movie that the creators have Samuel L. Jackson—playing real-life black historian and Civil War veteran Dr. George Washington Williams—Tarzansplain Lord Greystoke to himself in a ridiculous "You are Tarzan!" speech.

Samuel L. Jackson: historical hero and comedy-relief sidekick

Williams is a strange and interesting addition to the familiar Tarzan story, but also an endlessly problematic one. The real Williams really did travel to the Congo to expose and undermine the horrific slave trade in the Belgian colony. The fictional version hopes Tarzan's celebrity and familiarity with the region will help his cause. Williams' calculated presence in the film, and his unimpeachable status as a real-life historical figure, helps subvert the awkward Great White Savior trope Tarzan represents. But the filmmakers undermine their own subversion by making Williams endlessly inferior to Tarzan. Williams is an experienced survivalist, a crack shot, and a brave, resourceful altruist, but he's also unquestionably a comedy-relief sidekick, tagging along for the ride, and much less connected to Africa than the Caucasian hero. (As a side note, he's also remarkably close to Jackson's Hateful Eight character.) His presence is a welcome note of racial and symbolic self-awareness in a movie that's already on queasy colonial-narrative ground, but it creates as many problems as it addresses.

Jane is a similar representation problem. She represents a particularly awkward moment in the changing portrayal of women onscreen: She's a careful balancing act between damsel in distress and modern woman of action, a would-be feminist icon who's also a sultry bodice-ripper subjugation fantasy. Margot Robbie stars as on-and-off crazy-Joker-companion Harley Quinn in the upcoming Suicide Squad, and Robbie brings a Harley-esque unhinged energy to the table as she meets Waltz's urbane menace with cracked grins and wild eyes. But no matter how capable and self-assured she is, no matter how much she refuses to cry or scream or cower on demand, the film still can't find a use for her besides "captive." She talks a great game, but she's ineffectual at every turn.