Almost 850 screen adaptations of the story of Tarzan have been made since the invention of cinema so it would be wrong to say every generation gets the version they deserve. More correctly, every generation gets to put a man who they want to see with his top off in a Tarzan adaptation.Director David Yates, most famous for directing the majority of the Harry Potter franchise, has decided that Alexander Skarsgård is the man for the job this time.While The Legend of Tarzan , his version of the story of the aristocrat raised by apes, tries to correct some of the racist, misogynist and pro-colonial tendencies of Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs, it's a muddled, dull and plodding affair that we could have done without.Advances in CGI technology mean that the apes in this version have come a long way from the days of men in costumes but there's little irony, adventure or sustained interest in its Titanic-style melodrama to commend it.Re-jigged to try and placate all the sensitivities of modern audiences the plot takes us to the period following the discovery of Tarzan in the jungle, his marriage to Jane Clayton (Margot Robbie) and his return to England where he's living in his ancestral home as Lord John Clayton.Here he's invited to return to the Belgian Congo as the guest of King Leopold but actually it's all just a bloodthirsty ruse concocted by the Belgian sovereign's nefarious right hand man Leon Rom (Christoph Walz) to get access to a cache of diamonds that will solve the king's financial problems.Initially unwilling, Clayton is convinced by US diplomat George Washington Williams (Samuel L Jackson), a man of democratic convictions and here to provide comic relief. With Jane in tow the three set off for the jungles of darkest Africa where they discover that their tribal friends are in trouble and Tarzan's primate family are also not doing so well.Presented in unnecessary 3D and too intent on proving itself as not just another opportunity to show a half-naked man swinging through the jungle and howling, the film soon, in spite of its earnest intentions, becomes just that.By the time Walz's winking baddy gets his comeuppance at the hands of an army of marauding wildlife it's hard not to laugh out loud at the ludicrousness of the entire enterprise.Skarsgård's studied earnestness only makes him more ridiculous. Scenes of him talking to animals are better suited to an animal-whisperer documentary than to an adventure film with little adventure and a drama whose premise is essentially that, in the end, the fate of Africans and Africa is up to the great, semi-civilised white saviour.Perhaps it's time to live with the Tarzans we have rather than create new versions we could live without.PREPARING for the role of Tarzan required Skarsgård to undergo a physical transformation.He consumed 8000 calories a day - lots of steak and potatoes - and did up to five gym workouts a day.He worked with ballet choreographer Wayne McGregor to make his movements elastic, graceful and fluid.He did daily yoga, Pilates and alignment exercises.- ©The Daily Telegraph..