If the plot of "Mighty Joe Young" sounds familiar, it's probably not just because it's a remake of the 1949 RKO film of the same name that's best known for jump starting the career of legendary special effects wizard Ray Harryhausen. No, it's because it bears a striking resemblance to the most famous ape movie of all time, 1933's "King Kong."
While Joe isn't exactly Kong, Jr. (that character appeared in "Son of Kong" that hurriedly arrived in 1933 hoping to make some quick bucks), the people behind the first "Mighty Joe" -- writer Merian C. Cooper and stop motion pioneer Willis H. O'Brien -- were also responsible for the more well-known ape and his legendary movie.
As such, the parallels between the stories (including this remake) are more than striking. An expedition to Africa discovers an oversized ape and brings him to America where he proceeds to go berserk at his grand public unveiling. With the only thing capable of calming down the ape being an attractive woman for whom the beast is particularly fond, he eventually runs amok through the city, climbs the highest structure around, and then takes a fall. Now which movie are we talking about?
With Charlize Theron inhabiting a modernized version of the Fay Wray character, and Bill Paxton getting to do his Robert Armstrong part (and, of course, Joe plays the Kong role), everything's in place for a retreading of a familiar, but obviously not overused plot. Guess what? Despite the bland dialogue, acting, and overall predictability, the film still manages to work simply because the basic story is still quite solid.
Of course, director Ron Underwood ("City Slickers," "Tremors") and writers Mark Rosenthal & Lawrence Konner ("Mercury Rising," "Star Trek VI") know that the title character needs to be a likeable sort for the film to work. As such, and like any good family fare involving an animal protagonist, Joe the gorilla is a friendly character, who's smitten with Jill and enjoys playing hide- and-seek. Those qualities immediately endear him to the audience, and thus ensure that we'll care about what happens to him later in the story (above and beyond the standard "what havoc has man wrought upon nature" theme that runs through the film).
To ensure that the audience really gets behind Joe, the filmmakers needed to make sure that he appears quite real and for the most part they've admirably succeeded. Utilizing the latest blend of computer effects (courtesy of Hoyt Yeatman and several visual effects teams), animatronics (from renowned creature/effects whiz Rick Baker) and the old standard of a guy in a gorilla suit (John Alexander), Joe nearly seamlessly interacts with his "real" surroundings and human costars.
Eons ahead of what was possible in the original film that used the old -- but for their time, quite amazing -- stop motion animation techniques employed by legendary effects whiz Ray Harryhausen (who gets a brief walk-on part in the film), the contemporary ape effects are quite convincing. Even so, some of the other animals (notably a rhino seen in the foreground of a shot) don't completely capture that same realistic feel.
While the humans are obviously real and their characters are all appropriately likeable (except for the villains, of course), the performers are hampered by the fact that more attention apparently went into fleshing out Joe's character than his more "advanced" genetic cousins.
Although her character is always in the shadow of her "tall, dark, and handsome man" (both physically and in character development), Charlize Theron ("Devil's Advocate," "2 Days in the Valley") joins the illustrious ranks of Fay Wray and Jessica Lange who similarly had to act against imaginary or, at best, pieces of mechanical apes. While she doesn't get to test her lung capacity with those blood curdling screams, she does a decent enough job acting against a costar who more often than not was never on the set.
Bill Paxton ("Twister," "The Evening Star") plays yet another Bill Paxton type part (meaning a character mostly interchangeable from one movie to the next -- although he plays this part quite well), while Rade Sherbedgia, as the bad guy, simply plays an extension of the Russian villain he inhabited in the Val Kilmer movie, "The Saint." Supporting performances by the likes of David Paymer ("City Slickers") and Regina King ("Enemy of the State") as his associate, are decent, but they don't have much time or attention to do much with their characters.
This old-fashioned feeling film will undoubtably do much better than the last gorilla picture to hit the big screen ("Buddy"), but it's unlikely it will ever emerge from the shadow of its more famous ancestor who appeared in a much better film some sixty years ago. Good enough for what it's trying to accomplish, "Mighty Joe Young" will entertain the kids and won't bore the parents who've been brought along to see it. We give the film a 6 out of 10.
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