A.P.E. [1976]

Right away from the title, you know that this is going to be a King Kong knock-off. The movie itself wants you to know that it knows it's a King Kong knock-off too. But hanging the lampshade on this very derivative piece doesn't help it. What might have helped is that it was released the same year as a big budget King Kong, the one with Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange, which none of us have seen. While we can't compare it to that one, it was definitely inferior to the 1933 King Kong in terms of special effects, which is absolutely wild considering the four decades between them. Money is everything. But this one does have something that the '33 Kong lacks: unintentional comedy.

The makers of this film decided to completely forgo the first half of the Kong story by starting it on a boat that has already captured the monkey with the goal of bringing him to Disneyland to start his world tour. The monkey somehow escapes the boat, blowing it up entirely, and killing the best character in the movie, a super monotone first mate. We loved him so much we went back and watched the beginning a second time. The monkey also wrestles a shark in the first of what will be many hilarious scenes. The film actually takes place in Korea where a Hollywood actress arrives to film a movie. She has a boring romance with a reporter and as far as we can tell the movie she's filming is just about her getting raped in different parts of the Korean countryside (and we were all subjected to the director's advice to the lead actor of "rape her gently"). Meanwhile, the monkey is terrorizing the countryside where a lot of people don't seem to notice a 35 foot tall monkey until he's right in front of them. We get a lot of scenes of a military guy who doesn't leave his office talking on the phone to a Korean officer about how he doesn't believe the monkey problem exists until the movie needs him to. Occasionally we see the Korean officer at home where his wife amuses their children with a terrifying puppet. Eventually the monkey gets his hands on the actress after she runs right into his open palm. Twice she escapes, but the movie does make sure to note that she's sympathetic towards him. The monkey attacks Seoul, which is just a bunch of cardboard models, and then the military finally springs into action and takes him down. In an attempt at an iconic end line, the reporter dating the actress closes the movie with, "He's just too big for a small world like ours." Whatever that means.

The special effects in this movie are peak. The monkey costume looks very cheap, and they are never able to show the monkey in the same frame as any other actors. This is dealt with through a combination of low angle shots, models (including a toy parachute guy, a toy cow, model towns, and a toy tank), and a giant leg prop and giant hand prop. It is never convincing but it is consistently entertaining. The movie also has this weird quirk of having people throw things directly at the camera, making us wonder if it was a 3D film at some point. The film also has some mediocre, but not horrible, acting and a really poor script. The desire of the scriptwriter to skip any kind of build up just shows how unexciting a movie is when it's just fighting. All in all, a solid watch.

Spoon Rating: 6