Journal of a Sabbatical

January 22, 1999

mighty joe young

It was a gray day and I was in a bad mood so I decided to see a movie in the middle of the afternoon. Checking the listings at Lawrence and at Lowell I decided on Disney's take on Mighty Joe Young. One of the girls who used to work at Starbucks gave me a free pass, so I didn't have to feel like I was wasting the Antarctica fund on a kids' movie :-)

Plot summary:

Zoologist Gregg O'Hara , played by Bill Paxton, goes off to central Africa in search of some legendary beast N'gaizamu (I have no idea how it's spelled) and encounters Joe, an approximately 20-foot gorilla. Gregg has to be rescued from N'gaizamu by "a beautiful woman". That would be Jill Young, played by Charlize Theron. Jill and Joe were both orphaned by poachers on the same night and have grown up together ever since.

When Joe's life is threatened by poachers, Gregg and Jill move him to a California animal preserve. Somewhat predictable difficulties ensue. A ruthless poacher wants to steal Joe for his unique value in the endangered-species black market. This turns out to be the same poacher from Joe and Jill's past. They plot his escape but it goes wrong.

Jill and Gregg race to save Joe's life before he is destroyed by the law enforcement authorities. The chase culminates in Joe's act of heroism, and they all live happily ever after.

All based loosely (very loosely) on the 1949 original.

Opinion:

Joe, the special effects gorilla, is the most expressive actor in the whole movie. I started to believe he was real and expressing real depth and nuance of feeling. Oh, the bad guys were pretty convincing too. But Jill and Gregg were kind of flat. And I could not find a believable spark between them in their obligatory date on the beach scene.

That said, I cried my eyes out. I bawled out loud. This movie does a great job of pulling on the emotions. It was more of a tearjerker than Terms of Endearment even.

Where does a 2000 pound gorilla sleep? At a theater near you.