Between The Jungle Book, Kong: Skull Island, and The Legend Of Tarzan, it seems that jungle-themed action blockbusters are going to be the next big thing. And the trailer for that latter film offers a hint of what we can expect from them: Namely, an amalgamation of every recent action blockbuster thrown into one forest-filled film.
There are CGI apes à la the new Planet Of The Apes franchise, jungle natives who look a bit like the war boys from Mad Max: Fury Road, and a dramatic moment where two foes leap at each other in slow motion that seems to be featured in every superhero film these days. The cast is also filled with blockbuster pros playing their usual roles: Christoph Waltz is a bad guy, Djimon Hounsou is a minor antagonist, Margot Robbie is the sexy love interest, and Samuel L. Jackson is onboard to dispatch one-liners with a knowing nod (which he’ll also do in Kong: Skull Island). To its credit, the film also pulls from cinema history, lifting its vine gymnastics almost directly from Disney’s 1999 version of Tarzan (although, sadly, without the Phil Collins soundtrack).
This first trailer is more focused on ambiance, action, and abs than it is on plot. There are scenes of Alexander Skarsgård’s Tarzan both swinging shirtless through the trees and living life as a proper English gentleman, but the trailer doesn’t really hint at the fact that the film follows a gentrified Tarzan as he and his wife Jane (Robbie) return to the jungle as part of a trade emissary to the Congo. The Legend Of Tarzan swings into theaters July 2016.