Joyless 'Tarzan' is a bungle in the jungle

Some big ideas also are bad ideas, and there's a big, bad one at the heart of "The Legend of Tarzan."

The idea was to take some of the true history of the Congo, and its exploitation by the Belgians in the 19th century, and throw it together with the story of Tarzan - you know, a boy raised by apes in the jungle. It makes an awkward mix for a movie that is both confusing and weirdly inert.

The Congo at that time was under the control of King Leopold of Belgium, and one of his agents in charge was a fellow named Leon Rom, who was such a horrible human being that Christoph Waltz plays him here. At least, he plays a version of him, because the movie doesn't quite adhere to the facts.

In "The Legend of Tarzan," Rom is wiping out elephants for the ivory and pressing the native people into slavery. At the same time, he is fastidious and polite and never raises his voice. There's a turn of mind here that's arresting and expressed in an odd ways, as when he reaches across a table and corrects an imprecision in the cutlery. Killing people doesn't bother him, but a fork in the wrong place really gets under his skin.

Tarzan (Alexander Skarsgård) enters the picture because ... well, it's hard to say.

At the start of the film, he and Jane (Margot Robbie) are living in an enormous castle, their jungle years behind them. He is persuaded to return to Africa by the African-American politician, George Washington Williams (Samuel Jackson), a real-life figure who really did travel to the Congo to explore the treatment of the Congolese. In this fictionalized version, Williams feels that he needs Tarzan to help publicize his findings.

As presented here, Tarzan is a large, dull fellow, lacking in conversation or humor, so unless he's doing something particularly interesting - such as nuzzling with jungle cats or communing with elephants - he is pretty much a wash-out on screen. Skarsgård is physically impressive, however, and he clearly spent hundreds of hours in the gym in preparation for taking off his shirt.

If only the screenwriters had put the same time into figuring out what to do with Tarzan once they placed him in Africa.

Tarzan's mission is a jumble. He is there to discover bad things and perhaps to stop them. But for most of the movie he is simply trying to rescue Jane (she insisted on coming) from the clutches of the evil Rom. And though the movie makes an attempt to justify it, Rom's motive for kidnapping Jane makes little sense. He's trying to do something nefarious in the Congo, so he kidnaps the wife of the most gifted and savvy man on the continent. He's inviting a conflict with the only person who can beat him.

Still, "The Legend of Tarzan" is not without stray moments of cinematic charm. Every time Waltz is in conversation with Robbie, who is as radiant and straightforward here as Waltz is dark and skewed, the movie wakes up. And the close-ups of lions, apes and elephants have the appeal of a trip to the zoo, without the accompanying sadness of seeing animals imprisoned.

But there is something strangely dead about most of the film, which is mostly just a succession of scenes lacking energy, suspense or interest. In the last third, an attempt is made to liven things up, but the action feels appended and, at least in one case the CGI is disastrously fake looking.

In the end, what we have here is a Tarzan movie made by people who don't understand the appeal of Tarzan. He's about joy and abandon and the fantasy of living in harmony with creation. He's not about the struggle in the Congo. That's a worthy subject, but for a different kind of movie.