The movie begins with some texts evoking the colonization of what was in the late 19^th century called the Belgian Congo, and of a nefarious scheme involving mercenaries, slave labor, and pilfered diamonds, all engineered by an envoy named Leon Rom. This fellow is played by Christoph Waltz and he carries with him a rosary that sometimes doubles as a short-distance noose, which isn’t a heavy-handed piece of symbolism at all, no way. Anyway, he’s the bad guy, and he’s first seen entering the deepest, foggiest, most spear-ridden caverns of the African jungle to bargain with fierce chief Mbonga (Djimon Hounsou), who will give Rom all the diamonds he needs to finance his army … on delivery of his most hated enemy: Tarzan.

The movie finds Tarzan up in England, all civilized and respectable and Lord Greystoke-like, residing in his manor with wife Jane, something of a London celebrity and man of influence. The ruse of an invitation to check out Belgian’s “progress” in the Congo is proffered to Tarzan—this is part of Rom’s trap—and Tarzan, I mean Lord Greystoke, I mean John Clayton, is disinclined to accept. He’s moved, though, by the entreaties of an African-American diplomat/investigative agent, George Washington Williams (Samuel L. Jackson), who wants to tag along with, um, Tarzan, and get solid evidence of illegal slave trading. That’s travel companion one. Once the Big T gets back to the manor, we discover that he and Jane have a pretty 21^st-century type relationship. She, played by Margot Robbie, insists that she’s coming along too. He protests “The last thing you need is more stress”—I told you about that 21^st century biz—but she’s not having it. The gang of three hits the sea, and once on the Continent makes a meaningful detour to visit the tribe that Jane knew when her parents were missionaries. And there is much singing and celebration in a manner not unlike that scene in “Hatari!” where they make Elsa Martinelli the elephant queen or whatever she was. Almost sixty years and ain’t a damn thing changed in Hollywood.

Is that entirely true? As the presence of Jackson here somewhat attests, “The Legend of Tarzan” does make some attempts to address contemporary racial sensibilities/sensitivities. Almost every time something potentially dicey rears its head in the narrative, the movie practically pauses to excuse itself and say, “I know what you’re thinking, but it isn’t what you think, just wait,” and then, what do you know, Jackson’s character will chime in with an ironic apercu to remind everyone that we’re all friends here, and it’s the guy with the German accent and the rosary who’s the real problem.

Still, once Hans Landa, I mean Leon Rom, does show up to spoil the happy homecoming of Tarzan and Jane, laying ruin to the tribal village and kidnapping Jane, the movie does provide an object lesson on what is and is not, apparently, acceptable in the violent-entertainment scheme of things. A peaceful, noble African tribal leader can take a bullet to the chest, but once she’s been abducted, Jane can only have the threat of rape dangled in front of her and the audience. (Waltz’s performance as the villain is terribly familiar, but it’s kind of funny that he’s kitted out as if he wants the title role in a remake of “Fitzcarraldo.”) The way the semiotics play out should be somewhat queasy-making even if you aren’t paying close attention. Even after the movie establishes that Tarzan is a uniter, not a divider, the compromise he strikes with his most fearsome African nemesis is only accomplished after we’re treated to the spectacle of ultra-buff Alexander Skarsgård putting the hurt on about a dozen men of color. (And if you’re asking right about now why I have to bring politics, racial or otherwise, into it, one answer I have is that the movie did it first, by deigning to create a revisionist history of the Belgian Congo.)

Strangely enough, though, if you can put these considerations aside—or, I suppose, if you never cared about such considerations in the first place—“The Legend of Tarzan” is a pretty good action-adventure movie. Its narrative is refreshingly free of bloat, folding the Tarzan origin story into a series of relatively pain-free flashbacks that actually dovetail credibly into its contemporary scenario.