Day 181: Tarzan

A baby is saved by a gorilla and raised as one of them. The leader of the gorilla family doesn’t want him there and makes it clear that he is not one of them. When humans arrive on the island, he has to decide whether he wants to stay with the family who have raised him, or go and live amongst the humans.

How have I not seen this before? Madness. The start is so sad. First you have Kala (Glenn Close), the gorilla who saved Tarzan (Tony Goldwyn), lose her baby. Then you have Tarzan’s parents killed by the same animal that killed Kala’s child. She heard Tarzan crying and immediately took off to save him, then she was determined to keep him regardless of what the leader said. I loved her strong maternal instinct.

My only problem would be with how quickly and how well Tarzan learned English. There have been cases where people have been found who have had no chance to learn a language as children and it is extremely difficult for them to learn it in adulthood. There’s an optimal period for language acquisition and Tarzan would’ve been well past it. He was good at mimicking noises, however, so it would make sense that he could copy the words he heard. But I can’t see how he would’ve been able to construct sentences at the level he did. Anyway, I know it’s a Disney film about talking apes and whatnot so I’ll not let this little thing get in the way of my rating of it.

8/10