{"id":9211,"date":"2024-11-30T01:29:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-30T06:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=9211"},"modified":"2024-11-30T01:29:00","modified_gmt":"2024-11-30T06:29:00","slug":"going-ape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/11\/30\/going-ape\/","title":{"rendered":"Going Ape!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Going Ape!<\/strong> (1981)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Paramount\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 87 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (language, some violence)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Jeremy Joe Kronsberg\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Jeremy Joe Kronsberg\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Elmer Bernstein\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Frank V. Phillips\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: April 10, 1981 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Tony Danza, Jessica Walter, Stacey Nelkin, Danny DeVito, Bobby Berosini\u2019s Orangutans, Art Metrano, Frank Sivero, Rick Hurst, Howard Mann, Joseph Maher, Leon Askin, Jacquelyn Hyde, Merie Earle.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $5.5M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0Get ready for a multiple choice question. What is the significance of the number 81?<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. a) It\u2019s the year the comedy Going Ape!<\/strong> was released<\/li>\n
  2. b) It\u2019s the average IQ of the human characters in Going Ape!<\/strong><\/li>\n
  3. c) It\u2019s the maximum IQ of the target audience member for Going Ape!<\/strong><\/li>\n
  4. d) All of the above<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Like the movie in question, the answer is a total no-brainer (d, of course). Going Ape!<\/strong> is moronic beyond belief. It\u2019s populated by morons which is perfectly appropriate considering it\u2019s obviously made for morons. It\u2019s the kind of movie made exclusively for Saturday kiddie matinees because no adult in their right mind would to opt to see it voluntarily. I\u2019ll grant there are a lot of adults not in their right minds running loose in society, but probably not enough to justify nighttime showings.<\/p>\n

    \u00a0The simple-minded story centers on Foster (Danza, Taxi), the wayward son of an eccentric circus owner who chose not to follow in his father\u2019s footsteps. When his father dies, he\u2019s shocked to find out he inherited his father\u2019s most prized possessions, a trio of orangutans- four if you count Danny DeVito\u2019s character Lazlo, the Italian-speaking primate caretaker. If he takes good care of them for two years, he will inherit $5 million. If he fails in any way, the money will go to the local zoological society instead.<\/p>\n

    \u00a0Naturally, this causes problems for Foster. When he moves the orangutans (and Lazlo) into his apartment, his girlfriend Cynthia (Nelkin, Halloween III) moves out. When he\u2019s not engaged in some form of monkey business, he tries to win her back much to the annoyance of her snobby, upper-class mother Fiona (Walter, Play Misty for Me).<\/p>\n

    \u00a0Meanwhile, the greedy head of the zoological society (Maher, Heaven Can Wait) puts it on one of his underlings to see to it they get the $5M. He hires a couple of inept hitmen, Joey (Metrano, Police Academy 2 & 3) and Bad Habit (Sivero, Goodfellas), to deal with the problem. Each time, their attempts are foiled by the apes. True to form, Going Ape!<\/strong> culminates in a big madcap chase between the good guys and the bad guys involving disguises, guns, car crashes, everybody running amok in a hospital and one of the simian characters tied to a log on an electric sawmill machine.<\/p>\n

    \u00a0If there\u2019s ever been an instance of stupidity caught on film, Going Ape!<\/strong> is surely it. It\u2019s as mindless as mindless entertainment comes. I literally felt IQ points draining away as I gave up 87 minutes of my life on this foolishness. It\u2019s dumb enough to confound the most intellectual beings among us as to why it\u2019s supposed to be funny.<\/p>\n

    \u00a0Now I\u2019m no dummy. I pride myself in being reasonably intelligent. I don\u2019t suffer fools gladly. As such, I should have zero tolerance for the human idiots that populate Going Ape!<\/strong> I shouldn\u2019t be laughing at their shenanigans, tomfoolery and monkey business. Yet I did. It would be bad enough if I laughed only once or twice; it would be one or two times too many. It\u2019s worse, I laughed several times. Either I\u2019m not as intelligent as I think or I need psychiatric help. [Dramatic pause] After careful thought, I\u2019ve decided not to pursue that line of thought.<\/p>\n

    \u00a0Written and directed by Jeremy Joe Kronsberg, the fellow who wrote the Clint Eastwood-Clyde classic Every Which Way But Loose, Going Ape! <\/strong>has an unusually strong cast. Danza, who worked with the lead orangutan a second time in Cannonball Run II, is a likable guy. You really want to see his character prevail in the end if for no other reason than to stick it to his five horrible sisters. I couldn\u2019t help but wonder if they were part of the freak show. Thankfully, we never see them again after the will reading. Nelkin, an actress I\u2019ve always liked, is cute and perky. I will never understand why she didn\u2019t become a bigger star. Walter just seems resigned to play second banana to her simian co-stars. A lot of the time, it\u2019s hard to tell the difference between the apes and DeVito\u2019s character. The actor deservedly received a Razzie nomination for his embarrassing performance (he lost to Steve Forrest in Mommie Dearest).<\/p>\n

    \u00a0As bad as DeVito is in Going Ape!<\/strong>, he comes off as Olivier when compared to Metrano and Sivero as the incompetent hitmen. They\u2019re portrayed as stupid, spaghetti-slurping Italians who can barely put one foot in front of the other without causing a catastrophe. I am astonished that the Italian Anti-Defamation League didn\u2019t have anything to say about this depiction of Italians. Then again, why would they waste their time and breath on a movie this inconsequential?<\/p>\n

    \u00a0I don\u2019t know why, but I can\u2019t bring myself to hate Going Ape!<\/strong> Maybe it\u2019s my sense of nostalgia for the movies of my misspent youth. I could also blame it on my love of animal performers. It\u2019s even possible I appreciate the innocence of the thing. To its credit, it doesn\u2019t wallow in jokes about orangutan poop or bestiality. The closest it comes to something like that is the female ape\u2019s crush on Danza\u2019s character. Here\u2019s the bottom line, Going Ape!<\/strong> is silly. It\u2019s too silly to be taken seriously as cinema or art. It\u2019s just a dopey little movie aimed at kids and morons. I can\u2019t bring myself to condemn it. Criticize it, that I can do. Condemn it, never.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Going Ape! (1981)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Paramount\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 87 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (language, some violence)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Jeremy Joe Kronsberg\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Jeremy Joe Kronsberg\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Elmer Bernstein\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Frank V. Phillips\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: April 10, 1981 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Tony Danza, Jessica Walter, Stacey Nelkin, Danny DeVito, Bobby Berosini\u2019s Orangutans, Art Metrano, Frank Sivero, Rick Hurst, Howard Mann, Joseph Maher, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9531,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedies","category-guilty-pleasures"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Going-Ape-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9211"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9533,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9211\/revisions\/9533"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}