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

Day 158: I Give It A Year

A couple realise that married life isn’t the fairytale they were quite expecting but they agree to try and wait a year to see if that’s what they need.

If you’ve both realised that there’s a problem and you know you’re not right for each other then why wait a year? Just bloody end it now and you can stop making each other miserable. Nat (Rose Byrne) was getting annoyed at Josh (Rafe Spall) for always being in the house and not taking the bin out/putting the toilet seat down, but surely they lived together before they were married so she would’ve known all this before now? I mean, it was never said if they did live together or not beforehand but who gets married without living together first nowadays? I just don’t believe that they wouldn’t have been aware of their incompatibility long before now.

There were some laughs but overall, it was a bit boring. I didn’t really care what was happening and the ending seemed a bit implausible.

5/10

Day 93: Grosse Pointe Blank

A professional assassin goes back to his home town and tries to rekindle the relationship with his high school girlfriend.

Martin (John Cusack) ditched Debi (Minnie Driver) on prom night and then took off for 10 years with no word. He then waltzed back in to her life and tried to start up the relationship as if he hadn’t just run off for a decade. And she seems remarkably alright about the whole thing. Then she stumbles across him just having killed someone and has a little freak out. That doesn’t last too long though and she accepts that that’s just what he does. Their relationship seemed a little bit too far-fetched for me, I just don’t believe she’d have taken him back so easily and then when she saw that he killed someone that didn’t seem to bother her all that much. I understand they were in love 10 years before but he ran out on her and she thought all that time that she’d done something to make him take off. It all just seemed a bit too easy and quick.

I’ve always thought I could be an assassin. Not because I have any thoughts about killing people, I just think that if the money was right and the target was a bastard then I’d not have a problem with it.

8/10