Mighty Joe Young Review
by Scott Renshaw (renshaw AT inconnect DOT com)December 20th, 1998
MIGHTY JOE YOUNG (1998)
Starring: Charlize Theron, Bill Paxton, Rade Sherbedgia, Peter Firth, David Paymer, Regina King.
Screenplay: Mark Rosenthal & Lawrence Konner.
Producers: Ted Hartley and Tom Jacobson.
Director: Ron Underwood.
MPAA Rating: PG (profanity, violence)
Running Time: 110 minutes.
Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
Mighty Joe Young gives the most noteworthy performance in MIGHTY JOE YOUNG, which is only to be expected. After all, like the dinosaurs in JURASSIC PARK or the tornados in TWISTER (another film in which Bill Paxton is upstaged by a special effect), the big ape is the only reason anyone might want to see the film. In this big-budget remake of the 1949 ersatz KING KONG, a combination of monkey suit, computer animation and electronics replace Ray Harryhausen stop-motion to provide a more versatile range of emotion. The goal was a sympathetic simian, a 15-foot ton o' love you couldn't help but cheer for.
All evidence suggests that making Joe a crowd-pleasing character was all anyone involved in MIGHTY JOE YOUNG cared about -- and they couldn't even get _that_ right. They begin by making him an orphan, his mother killed by poachers in Africa on the same night that anthropologist Dr. Ruth Young (Linda Purl) leaves her own daughter an orphan trying to save the apes. Twelve years later, American zoologist Gregg O'Hara (Bill Paxton) comes to Africa to investigate legends of a giant ape, and discovers Joe to be real -- and his caretaker, Dr. Young's daughter Jill (Charlize Theron), to be beautiful. O'Hara offers Joe protection at a Los Angeles nature preserve, but danger lurks in the person of Strasser (Rade Sherbedgia), the killer of Joe and Jill's parents who has both dollar signs and vengeance on his mind.
MIGHTY JOE YOUNG can only work on a story level if Joe is not a monster but a sensitive, misunderstood stranger in a strange land, like a hirsute E. T. Unfortunately, there is not a shred of internal logic to Joe's personality. At times, he's a big playful kid; at other times, for no apparent reason other than a cheap laugh, he's a super-intelligent beast who shakes his head ironically and escapes from pursuers with cleverly-executed diversionary tactics. One minute he's looking at O'Hara as an enemy and a rival for Jill's affection, and the next he's holding O'Hara's hand like they're old pals. Even Joe's situational sense of morality makes it hard to care about him, as he dispatches villains with the kind of ruthlessness you'd expect of James Bond, not the furry hero of a Disney movie. Joe's not a character -- he's a contrivance, manipulated by technicians for whatever tone suits the needs of the moment.
That leaves the human characters, and oh what a scary mistake that turns out to be. Charlize Theron is a tremendously appealing actress, but she's instantly ridiculous traipsing around the jungle in a designer coiffure; Bill Paxton fares little better as the earnest, bland hero you expect at any moment will scold the villain with "he's in it for the money, not the science." They get to wander together in a couple of canned romantic interludes so absurd you'll want to shoot yourself in the thigh with a tranquilizer dart. The rest of the cast consists of obligatory types (the Intransigent Authority Figure, the Henchman, etc.) and obligatory cameos from the original (Terry Moore and Ray Harryhausen himself), all standing around waiting for Joe to go on his action-packed climactic rampage.
There are plenty of viewers to whom none of this will matter in the slightest, provided MIGHTY JOE YOUNG delivers its share of family adventure. In fact, it works sporadically on that level, with a couple of lively chases and some whoop-it-up destruction on Hollywood Boulevard. I'm just not sure what kids will make of the violence Joe inflicts on innocent bystanders, or his streak of homicidal vigilantism. It's telling that the film has to put a child in jeopardy in the final ten minutes to make Joe's noble heart evident, and have the child plead for the ape's well-being with a wide-eyed "Is Joe gonna be all right?" All the film-makers needed to do for MIGHTY JOE YOUNG to work on a basic level was make it easy to root for Joe. Instead, the only character that matters -- in a Disney film, no less -- is an unstable, ill-defined murderer. Say it ain't so, Joe...say it ain't so.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 meet Joe blecchhs: 3.
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