10 Reasons Why Apes (And Monkeys) Should Hate Hollywood

Conspiracy theorists might think that Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes bites more than a few ideas from 2000’s MVP: Most Valuable Primate. For starters, both Rise’s Caesar and MVP’s Jack are taught sign language at the age of three. And they each spend time inside medical research labs, and also become BFFs with a sympathetic male character. The similarities are uncanny.

But there’s a big difference between the two flicks: Rise wasn’t made with the intentions of sullying both a beloved sport’s good name and little kids’ retinas. The kind of movie that’s undoubtedly a masterpiece if seen under Mary Jane’s influence, MVP loses all commonalities with Rise once Jack leaves the research facility. Instead of organizing his primate brethren for a full-scale revolt, Jack starts hitting slapshots in junior league hockey and high-sticking opponents, with a “Chimpsky” jersey on his hairy back.

It sure looks like Bernie, Mack, and Louie—the three ape thespians that played Jack—had a grand old time shooting MVP, so it’s too bad that the feeling is totally one-sided. Jack’s reign of terror continued through two sequels, in which the Deion Sanders of the primate kingdom achieved all-star status as a skateboarder and snowboarder. You know it’s bad when we actually feel obligated to salute Ed for claiming baseball years before Jack ever could.

At one point in his career, Tim Burton would have been an inspired choice to remake the original Planet Of The Apes, the 1968 sci-fi classic starring Charlton Heston and those “damn, dirty apes!” Unfortunately, lovers of the groundbreaking, Rod Serling-penned masterwork had to endure a dull, decent-looking yet altogether uninspired redo made at the beginning of Burton’s creative downward spiral. If apes could talk in real life, they would have screamed, “Go fuck yourselves, Hollywood! You couldn’t give us Spielberg?”

In an equally fantastical world where apes frequent local watering holes, they could have pinned Mark Wahlberg’s head-shot to a dartboard and hurled pointers at it. Though not as bad as his unbelievably off turn in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening seven years later, Wahlberg’s performance as an astronaut who crashes onto an ape-run planet is a Master’s class in wooden acting.

Wahlberg's flatness is surrounded by Burton’s atypically run-of-the-mill blockbuster aesthetics; unlike the director’s other films, even the so-so ones, Planet Of The Apes feels like it could’ve been shot by any studio-hired filmmaker. Or even a talented chimp. Maybe Burton really needs Johnny Depp after all.

In 1943, the once-great Bela Lugosi’s career was heading towards rock bottom. Still getting work on the strength of his formidable reputation, which grew in power following 1931’s masterpiece Dracula and several great horror flicks shortly after, the Hungarian actor started tainting his brand with a string of crappy, lowest-common-denominator genre projects—anything to keep his name in the public eye.

Much to the chagrin of primates for decades to come, Lugosi began his descent into Z-grade cinema with The Ape Man, by all accounts a filmmaking travesty. The shamed actor tries walking like an ape, but instead lumbers around like a dude who’s just accidentally sat on a baton, and his overlong facial hair is a ZZ Flop. As for the movie itself, The Ape Man scares about as much as Magilla Gorilla. The only thing it has in common with Lugosi’s Dracula-era greatness is that both suck, just not blood in this case.

First, watch the above clip, from the too-goofy-for-its-own-good 1997 modernization of George Of The Jungle. We’ll give you a second…. OK, you’re good? Now, tell us that the poor gorilla, which is already stuck inside a cage, doesn’t have a look of pure “Even I could’ve written a better script than this” on its face. It doesn’t take Aaron Sorkin to know that, even in a kids’ movie, having a character get into a verbal tiff against the film’s narrator isn’t funny, or inventive—it’s completely idiotic.

Had that poor gorilla known anything about showbiz, it would have bounced off set on all fours and pounded on its agent once Brendan Fraser stepped out to film his first scene; he’s not one of our worst actors of all time for nothing. So bad, in fact, that he’s repeatedly upstaged by an animatronic gorilla throughout George Of The Jungle. Here’s one case where the primate actors gladly fell back to let oversized dolls handle the job.

It’s the lazy screenwriter’s ultimate go-to device for comedy: Take an animal, have the non-human do something only us homo sapiens normally execute, and watch the cheap laughs ensue. Look no further than that infamous “dogs playing poker” painting, or Saturday Night Live’s old “Toonces the Driving Cat” bits, or practically everything on our Most Obnoxious Movie Animals list.

Monkeys have been just as prone to this bullshit narrative tactic as any other domestic pet, farm animal, or zoo denizen. A once-popular example is adorable little Marcel, David “Ross” Schwimmer’s precocious capuchin monkey on the NBC megahit Friends. In the above scene, Marcel uses Ross’ stereo to bump “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” music’s obvious cue for jungle references, for what’s apparently the hundredth time.

Because, of course, that’s what any annoying new human roommate would do—play the latest mundane Top 40 pop hit endlessly until you or your intolerant pals flipped out. “Marcel’s just doing what he’d catch Ross or any of the other characters doing,” a Friends apologist would say. Our response: Monkey see, monkey doo-doo.

Unlike Planet Of The Apes, which was curiously lessened by Tim Burton’s involvement, 2001’s manic animated clusterfuck Monkeybone could have benefitted from the eccentric filmmaker’s presence. With quirky visuals, reckless energy, and a shamelessness in its pilfering of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, director Sam Hamm’s (named after the worst character Dr. Seuss never wrote, no doubt) gonzo flick needed an auteur capable of channeling various loony influences into a somehow cohesive production. At his best, that’s Burton, all day.

But, alas, Hamm is not that. At least for Monkeybone, he mishandles the frantic movie’s pace and energy so poorly that even Brendan Fraser’s appallingly bad performance is forgivable. We can’t imagine any actor saving face alongside a cartoon monkey that plays with farting doll versions of itself. Monkeybone isn’ t just crazy—it’s pure ape shit.

As kick-ass as Caesar, the main primate in Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes, is, it’s quite unlikely that his likeness will inspire this year’s biggest Halloween costume trend. And, truthfully, he should be thankful, because his kind haven’t fared well in that department.

Widely regarded as one of cinema’s all-time largest shit sandwiches, the ’53 alien invasion disaster Robot Monster is just as notorious for its no-budget costume design as it is for its overall ineptitude. According to Hollywood lore, the flick’s director, 25-year-old Phil Tucker, couldn’t afford a proper Martian get-up, so he resorted to borrowing a friend’s gorilla suit to conceptualize the movie’s villain, an invader known as Ro-Man that kills earthlings with a (plastic) ray gun. For extra counterproductive effect, Tucker added a fish-bowl-like helmet to the design. Why the fuck not, right?

For astute genre fans, it’s nearly impossible to see a gorilla suit and not think about Robot Monster, and immediately burst into hysterics. Thanks to modern technology, all the brilliant actor Andy Serkis needed to portray Caesar were some wires, a black Spandex suit, and motion-capture magic—there were presumably no fish bowls anywhere on set. That's what we call "artistic progression."

Going Bananas, starring Dom DeLuise and Jimmie “J.J.” Walker (yup, from Good Times), is the heartwarming tale of a friendly pre-teen boy who heads off into African jungles to play with fun-loving mercenaries. Oh, and a talking monkey. Bonzo isn’t your average talking animal, though—he’s the stuff of adolescent nightmares.

Seriously, what kid would see a monkey that looks like a crossbreed between Roddy McDowall’s Cornelius in the original Planet Of The Apes and Arnold Schwarzenegger and not flee in terror? Shit, if we didn’t tremble in fear, then we’d certainly laugh uncontrollably as the creepy primate manages to deliver a worse performance than DeLuise, whose own line deliveries give cue cards a bad name.

Unsurprisingly, ”no goodbye” didn’t become 1987’s biggest catchphrase, and Going Bananas has barely amassed a following to rival that of The Garbage Pail Kids Movie. Nonetheless, when Caesar utters his climactic line of dialogue in Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes, it’s hard to not imagine primates everywhere proudly flipping Bonzo the bird.

It’s not like unimaginative film producers aren’t open to altering the classics. For every rehashed scene in Hollywood’s glossy and usually inferior reboots, there’s a plot tweak or new ending just waiting for purists’ disapproval. King Kong, however, is one cinematic gem we’d love to see attempted once more, if only to see the massive gorilla live happily ever after with its little blonde companion.

Is there anything more heartbreaking than watching Kong fall to his death, as Ann Darrow looks on through tear-soaked eyes? In 1932, Ann was played by cutie Fay Wray, followed by the sexy Jessica Lange in 1976 and Naomi Watts, the hottest of them all, twenty-five years later. But, regardless of the actress, Kong always meets the same tragic fate. Just once we’d like to see our favorite heartbreaking gorilla swat those pesky airplanes away like gnats, cradle Ann in his gigantic arms, and head off into the sunset.

The ultimate happy ending: Kong and Ann shack up inside a cave on some deserted island. You say “beastiality,” we say “It’s only fair.”

In some parts of the world, monkeys’ brains are a delicacy, much like pasta in Italy and Pepto Bismol in India. So when the sick bastards responsible for 1980’s infamously revolting Faces Of Death were looking to stage various means of death, they found the potential for a particularly gross segment in said brain-eating. When the notorious flick was released, many viewers upchucked their most recent meal, and morality specialists expectedly wigged out.

Come to find out years later, though, that the scene is a hoax; the brains are a mixture of cauliflower, food coloring, and gelatin, and the monkey’s head is a sculpture. Still, PETA and the ASPCA’s least favorite Faces Of Death sequence isn’t fun to watch, especially if there’s a primate in the audience.

Watching FOD, you'll understand why our ape friends’ are so pissed and probably vomit a little in your mouth. See, movies are equal opportunity offenders.