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Mighty Joe Young

Another monkey movie. And it's Disney. Personally, I think this is appropriate. But on with the review!

We get to watch a little girl named Jill Young (Mika Boorem) as she and her mother, Dr. Ruth Young (Linda Purl) observe gorillas in their natural habitat. She sneaks away briefly to play with Joe, a young gorilla. Her mom finds them and doesn't approve. 

Then we go to a scene with Dr. Ruth putting young Jill to bed. She tells some story and sings some song and then we hear that there are poachers about. So, Dr. Ruth runs out with some natives to try to save the gorillas. Being a kid in a Disney flick, Jill feels invincible and runs out shortly thereafter to help her mom. Unfortunately, her mom and Joe's mom are both killed by the poachers.

Young Jill grows up (Charlize Theron) and continues to try to protect her friend and all animals from poachers and their ilk. Of course, that's made a little harder when little Joe grows up into a giant 2000+ lb. gorilla. 

Gregg O'Hara (Bill Paxton) comes along to investigate tales of a giant gorilla. He wants to take it to America to an animal shelter. O'Hara and his men find Joe and Joe does not like him and his people. They try to capture Joe and he ruins most of their equipment. O'Hara meets Jill and follows her into the forest without her knowledge. He suspects that she knows the gorilla and he finds that he's right.

Eventually, O'Hara convinces Jill that taking Joe out of the jungle would be a good thing. The owners of the preserve aren't impressed with Jill until she shows her talents of calming Joe. They hire her...duh!

Well, a giant gorilla is good news and it's spread all over. Now young Joe had bitten the finger off the poacher that killed his mother before Joe ran off. The poacher sees Joe and Jill on the TV and deduces that that little thing must have gotten huge. (I call that "leaping to conclusions!") Well, they go there with a necklace/bead thing and shake it to irritate Joe when no one's looking. They get him good and mad and then leave.

They come back again when there's a big formal dinner for the official unveiling of Joe. Again, they tease Joe into seeing red and then go back to the dinner. Unfortunately, they did too good a job and Joe comes looking for them. He throws stuff around and is a very angry gorilla.

This jerk poacher approaches Jill and tells her he can help. He says that this preserve is too small for Joe and that he has a big protected area in Africa that would serve Joe's needs much better. Jill concedes and gets O'Hara and another doctor to help get Joe out of solitary. (They had to lock him up after that incident.) 

They get him into the evil poachers semi and they make off with Joe. Jill rides with them and as they chat, she realizes who he is. She tries to escape and gets flung from the semi. This ticks Joe off and he makes the semi tip over. Now we got a big gorilla running around the city smashing things. This makes the locals rather peeved. Of course, some people think it's funny when he crushes a nice car that's alarm goes off.

Anyway, Joe has his climax in an amusement park. He goes there because he sees a big spotlight. He thinks that it's Jill because she used a flashlight to call him a lot. He goes there and doesn't find Jill. Thus, Joe is not happy. The poachers also come along and try to kill him, but Joe takes care of his main adversary. 

The amusement park catches on fire with all the shooting and frightened people running about. And there's a kid trapped on the burning ferris wheel, so Joe has to climb it to help the kid and redeem himself or get killed by the cops. They all watch in anticipation as Joe tries to climb the burning implement and slips a couple of times. He gets the kid, but then the thing tips and Joe leaps from it to keep from being mashed. He lands on his back with the kid held to his chest.

The child seems to be OK, but Joe seems to have died. Too bad! Actually, this scene is kind of touching. But this is Disney and we can't have an unhappy ending, so he's alive, don't worry!

The end shows him running in a Mighty Joe Young conservation. Whoohoo! (Yeah, whoopty-doo)

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This is a decent effort on Disney's part. But they're just trying to get money to support their garbage, so go to your library instead if you want to see it. It's cheaper and you won't support Disney...much.