# Mighty Joe Young (1998)

### reviewed by
Mark R. Leeper

                               MIGHTY JOE YOUNG
                        A film review by Mark R. Leeper

                   Capsule: A kind-hearted, eighteen-foot-tall
              gorilla from Africa is brought to Los Angeles and
              wreaks the expected havoc.  The film starts much
              more interestingly than the 1949 version, but
              neither has much idea what to do with the plot once
              it moves to the city.  The good special effects add
              a lot.  Rating: 6 (0 to 10), +1 (-4 to +4)

The original MIGHTY JOE YOUNG was something of a disappointment for me. I think that was because from about age six on one of my favorite films was KING KONG (1933). (Incidentally, that is one of the rare opinions I shared with Adolph Hitler.) MIGHTY JOE YOUNG (1949) was a reprise of the same talent. Its effects were created by the same master, Willis O'Brien, assisted by a new apprentice, a special effects technician named Ray Harryhausen. Harryhausen would become the king of Hollywood special effects from 1951 to 1977. But the talent was used to make a sort of junior King Kong for children. Stop-motion animation went the way of flat animation and of comic books to be associated with children's entertainment. Serious adults (people like my parents) did not go to see films that featured stop-motion animation. As with the SON OF KONG the special effects became associated with "cute." In spite of my diffidence toward the original MIGHTY JOE YOUNG, I was fairly ambivalent to hear that the classic was being remade. My reaction is that the remake is a big improvement in realistic special effects and the story begins much better. But neither film has a whole lot of interest to say about what happens when an eighteen-foot-tall ape is brought to America.

As a great nostalgic touch the film opens with the RKO Pictures logo, just as the original did. It is an updated logo, but basically the same radio antenna. Apparently one of the most creative studios is still around and in the film business sufficiently to get their name on this remake of their film. The new plot introduces poachers to the story. While their original had no reference at all to poaching, it would have been virtually impossible to tell the same story today without explaining why a baby gorilla would be motherless without mentioning poaching. The first third of this film, the part about the discovery of the ape, is done on an almost adult level. Linda Purl plays Dr. Ruth Young--obviously patterned on Dian Fossey--who, accompanied by her young daughter, Jill, studies gorillas in their natural habitat. Ruth and a female gorilla she is studying are both killed by poachers the same night and young Jill adopts Joe, the quickly growing baby of the killed gorilla.

Flash forward twelve years and the giant gorilla is now a local legend. Nearly as much a legend is the white woman (played by Charlize Theron who is actually South African), a grown-up Jill who is the gorilla's friend. Gregg O'Hara (Bill Paxton) is in Africa collecting wild animal blood for a Los Angeles nature conservancy (why is never explained). He is temporarily detaining wild animals to collect the blood when out of the bush comes a huge gorilla and sets one of his captured cats free. O'Hara wants to add some giant gorilla blood to his collection and has his unsavory team of trackers go after the ape. Not surprisingly, he finds the ape he was trying to catch has caught him instead. He is saved only at the last minute by the intervention of a mysterious woman, Jill. Now Gregg knows he must track down the mysterious woman and her gorilla. Eventually Gregg will find Jill and convince her that for Joe's own safety against poachers he has to be taken to a nature conservancy. He suggests the one he is associated with in Los Angeles.

The plot here is not tremendously adult, but it is better fleshed out and more intelligent than the plot in the original film. Willis O'Brien might well have approved of the more complex story line. Whether he would have approved of the effect would be a different matter. O'Brien was bitterly disappointed when a project he started to do a second KING KONG sequel got out of his hands and eventually mutated into KING KONG VS. GODZILLA with its man-in-a-gorilla-suit Kong. Here again at least in some scenes Joe is played by a man in a suit. At least it is a Rick Baker-designed suit that is fairly convincing where it is used. Deep down it is John Alexander in a much more realistic suit. We do not have to ask if effects technician Ray Harryhausen would have approved. In the party scene late in the film the older gentleman reminiscing with his wife are really Harryhausen and Terry Moore, the star of 1949 version. While I am on the subject of self-references the film poster at Graumann's Chinese Theater is from WAGON MASTER directed by John Ford and starring Ben Johnson. John Ford was the executive producer of MIGHTY JOE YOUNG (1949) and Ben Johnson was Terry Moor's co-star. Ford and Johnson are no longer with us so I suppose this was a way of giving them some sort of an appearance.

Where the new version may fall short a little of the original is in the introduction of two nefarious villains with thick foreign accents. Their plan to steal the giant ape, dissect him, and sell the pieces does not seem to make financial sense. Somehow Charlize Theron seems to wear a little too much makeup for her character.

It was a little surprising that Has Zimmer who did African- flavored score for THE LION KING, and has since been specializing in scores for films with African themes, was not chosen to do another African score for them. It might have something to do with his scoring the animated THE PRINCE OF EGYPT, a film made in direct competition with Disney. Whatever the reason James Horner provided the score and did an okay job, but people will not be rushing out for the soundtrack. Also I notice that the film walks something of a narrow path trying not to put in a bad light the animal conservancy which is, after all, not all that different from Disney's new Animal Kingdom Park.

In 1949 the original film was unusual for its day. Its remake from almost a half century later in some ways improves on the original. It special effects have been improved upon to the point of perfection. But the story is unexceptional, perhaps even overly cliched, for a modern audience. On balance I give it a 6 on the 0 to 10 scale and a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.

Included with the film is a Mouseworks Cartoon. I did not catch the title but the subject was "extreme sports" as demonstrated by Goofy. It was extremely short for a Disney cartoon, being maybe two or three minutes long.

                                            Mark R. Leeper
                                            mleeper@lucent.com
                                            Copyright 1998 Mark R. Leeper

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