ine-year-old Jill Young has a special bond with Joe, the unusually large infant gorilla who is part of a group being studied by Jill's naturalist mother in an Eden-like Central Africa. So when Joe's mother is killed by poachers, and Jill's own mother is mortally wounded, the young ape is entrusted into Jill's care.
Twelve years later, adventurous conservationist Gregg O'Hara (Paxton) arrives in Africa to track down the legend of a giant gorilla living in the Pangani Mountains. Accompanied by a ragtag band of hired guns, Gregg drives into the jungle and comes face to knee with Joe, now a 15-foot, 2,000-pound behemoth. Joe doesn't like what he sees, and after a chase through the forest he pummels his pursuers' vehicles like so many toys. In fact, he is on the verge of pulverizing Gregg when he is stopped by Jill, now a beautiful young woman (Theron).
At first distrustful of Gregg's motives, Jill comes to believe that he is sincere when Gregg suggests moving Joe to a California conservation preserve in order to save him from poachers who are daily encroaching on Joe's habitat. She reluctantly agrees. Once in Los Angeles, both Jill and Joe take a while to get used to their new surroundings. At the same time, Gregg and Jill seem like they are on the verge of a closer relationship. Then trouble starts.
It seems the poacher who killed Jill's mother, Strasser (Shebedgia), has found out about Joe. He arrives in California and manages to trick his way into acquiring Joe--a rare genetic anomaly--with the intent of selling him off piece by piece on the black market. Before the poacher can carry out his plans, though, Joe gets free. In a rampage through Los Angeles, he is pursued by Strasser, the police and Jill and Gregg, who are desperate to save the giant gorilla before it's too late.
Monkey business
Mighty Joe Young is a remake of the 1949 schlock classic of the same name, co-created by the man who brought the world King Kong, Merian C. Cooper. Throughout the new film, there are homages to the original, including a scene in which the original's star, Terry Moore,
tells her companion that Jill "looks familiar." Her escort is none other than Ray Harryhausen, the wizard whose work animating the original Joe helped the film win one of the first Oscars for special effects. He tells Moore: "She looks like you when I first met you."
Nostalgia aside, however, this Joe is strictly kid stuff. The remake, written by Mark Rosenthal and Lawrence Konner based on Cooper's story and Ruth Rose's original screenplay, updates the film with a '90s spin, streamlining the story, adding new bad guys in the form of some vicious poachers, and delivering a sanitized lesson in environmental
preservation.
From the opening scenes in a Lion King-like Africa to the Bambi-like deaths of Joe's and Jill's moms, to Joe's rampage through Hollywood, the film plays out like a live-action animated movie. This is not helped by the cartoonish characterizations and truly lame humor. (One character, paralyzed with fear upon seeing Joe, quips: "I'm not moving, but my bowels are.")
That said, the film contains enough scary parts--including scenes in which children are put in mortal danger--to be too disturbing for the really young. Joe himself is an impressive achievement, a combination of a live actor in one of Rick Baker's patented monkey suits and some stunning computer animation. But the action sequences seem like pale imitations of similar, much better, scenes from Jurassic Park: The Lost World.
The talented Theron, who spends much of the movie in tank tops and sarongs, looks like she'd be more at home in a Banana Republic ad than in the jungle. But both she and Paxton, who are made for much better things, gamely mouth the trite dialogue and try to make the romance work. Sadly, it's romance as envisioned by a teenage girl, and it won't hold much interest for anyone over 15.
