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Director David Yates' "The Legend of Tarzan" has a top-shelf cast, stunning visual effects and a sumptuous look — everything, really, except a reason for being.

Set in 1890, the story starts with John Clayton III, the Earl of Greystoke (Alexander SkarsgÄrd), at his mansion in England, far from the African jungles where he was raised. He's invited to the Congo by King Leopold of Belgium, unaware it's a trap being set by Leopold's colonial henchman, Leon Rom (Christoph Waltz), who wants to serve up Tarzan to a tribal chief (Djimon Hounsou) in exchange for enough diamonds to pay off the king's colonization debts. (The intro explaining the king's financial predicament may be the most boring lead-in to an action adventure since the trade negotiations in the first "Star Wars" prequel.)

Clayton goes to Congo to disrupt Rom's nefarious plans, along with his wife, Jane (Margot Robbie), and an American, George Washington Williams (Samuel L. Jackson), eager to reveal Leopold's enslavement of the local population.

Yates, who made the last four "Harry Potter" films, is comfortable with the CGI wizardry necessary to produce apes, elephants and wildebeests. But the herky-jerky script, credited to Adam Cozad ("Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit") and Craig Brewer ("Hustle & Flow") and reportedly in studio development for a dozen years, suffers from stop-and-start pacing and an inconsistent tone.

Skarsgard is suitably buff as Tarzan and Robbie is no wilting damsel as Jane, but Waltz's usual accented villainy is dying on the vine.

'The Legend of Tarzan'

Opens Friday, July 1, at theaters everywhere; rated PG-13 for sequences of action and violence, some sensuality and brief rude dialogue; 110 minutes.