Chimpanzee is a movie made by a Disney. It’s about chimpanzees. Mostly one but I can’t say that is certain because I can’t tell chimpanzees apart because I am not a chimpanzee. Maybe I would have enjoyed this movie more if I were some sort of monkey, or if I were a human who was all about fruit and nut eating. Maybe it would have been enjoyable if I had entered the theater thinking, “Man, I hope I get to see hairy things eating over and over and over and over.” But I didn’t. So, fuck Chimpanzee.
Look, I get it. I’m an adult. This movie was not made for me. Great, how about you make it for my kid? He’s three. You know what he doesn’t ask me everyday? “Dad, can I watch animals eat for an hour and a half?” Because watching animals eat isn’t fun unless the animal doesn’t have a mouth. Then it is crazy hilarious and fucking weird. Turn that shit into a television series and I’m in.
The movie’s lead is Oscar. He’s a chimpanzee. He starts out as a baby and by the end of the movie he’s still pretty small. No timeline is given, so the audience has no idea how much time passes or if Oscar should be in preschool or kindergarten at the end. We do know that Oscar spends a lot of time learning how to eat food. And other chimps eat food. And even more chimps want to eat that food. How great does that sound?
There’s a bad chimp. His name is Scar. He’s supposed to be leading an opposing group of chimps in a fight over some figs or something. I don’t know if I buy any of it, honestly. I’m pretty jaded when it comes to documentaries and reality television. Scar could be some completely made up bullshit in a desperate attempt to create a story because someone realized they had hours and hours of footage of monkeys eating nuts. But, Scar is definitely there, and he’s brings his monkey troops into battle for a fruit tree. By “battle,” I mean some chimps run around and jump on trees and the audience has no clue as to what is going on. If this were a well-crafted film, a chimp would pick up a gun and shoot another chimp and then I’d have known exactly what is going on.
Oscar’s mom dies. You should know that because if you take a kid, they may be seriously bummed out by the death of a parent. Thank for bringing that dead Bambi’s mom shit back, Disney. The filmmakers never explain why there are all these moms but no dads. They don’t go into the creepy harem aspect of chimp living. At no time do they show the lead monkey banging lady monkey after lady monkey. While completely inappropriate for children, it would be much better than watching some asshole chimp fill up his mouth with figs.
There is a resolution of sorts, I guess. Oscar does have on nice moment with an older monkey. In all, there is a decent short film in there somewhere. My kid didn’t like it and you have to do a lot to bore a three-year-old. I also found their asses to be upsetting. Visually upsetting. Don’t go see it.
Dave Anthony
