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 41: Jurassic Park

You know how sometimes you just need to watch something with dinosaurs? And by ‘sometimes’ I mean, ‘all the time’? To the friend that picked this film, I thank you for giving me an excuse to watch this beauty.

Rich man who puts the least amount of thought into anything (unless it’s making sure he spares no expense!), John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), brings dinosaurs back from extinction and sets up a wee park for people to come along and see them. Who better to test the highly dangerous and completely unready park on but your own grandchildren? As is expected, it all goes from bad to worse for the people. For the dinosaurs they’re probably happier out of their cages. Swings and roundabouts, I guess?

Alan (Sam Neill) and Ellie (Laura Dern) are the cutest. We first see them as they are digging up a raptor skeleton and Alan puts the fear into a kid who dared to compare the raptor to a turkey. I like how she knows what he's like and that he was going to go off on a dramatic story and that he just doesn’t like children. That obviously doesn’t last though because he becomes a total hero throughout the film, constantly protecting and looking after Tim and Lex. He gets Lex to trust him despite her being terrified, he shields Tim when the car falls on them, and he looks after them while they’re sleeping in the tree. To quote my notes, “Alan, you’re my hero.” And you can see the effect it has on Ellie when they’re in the helicopter at the end and she’s looking at him with the kids. Children might be on the cards after all! Except it’s not because I’ve seen the sequels and it makes me sad. Ellie and Alan are for life in my heart. I mean, they way he looks at her when she says “Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.” is the best. He looks smitten, I just love that look.

While I love the idea of dinosaurs existing again, it would just be mental. Why breed carnivores? You’re just asking for trouble. If I was Hammond here I’d have just ended up with a park full of Triceratops (favourite dinosaur) and Brachiosaurus. How amazing would that be! I’ve always loved Triceratops the most after seeing this film. You only see one and she’s sick but god, I just loved her right away. They are brilliant. And they remind me of rhino, which are my favourite animals, so I guess I couldn’t help but love them. It would be totally safe to have an island of those, definitely.

Absolutely love the film.

9/10