This is one of those flicks I heard of long ago and was never sure whether it would be worth my time. It sounded like a lesser successor to King Kong, which I've long deemed overhyped and horribly dated, no matter which version. But it had to offer something different, or they wouldn't have remade it in '98. I took the chance.
The first key difference between Joe and Kong is that Joe has been raised from infancy by humans, particularly a girl named Jill Young, whose father came to East Africa from the U.S. After 12 years, he's extra enormous for no stated reason, but he mostly understands and obeys Jill. When showman Max O'Hara goes on an expedition to bring back exotic animals and exaggerated tales, he fast-talks Jill into signing a contract that has her and Joe performing in live Hollywood stage productions. Joe doesn't wear shackles like Kong, but neither does he enjoy his new environs. Jill seeks to get him home before he reaches a breaking point -- or before the authorities do....
I should mention Gregg, a cowboy whose skills on the safari range from lassoing to liaising. He helps the O'Hara company get on Jill's good side after a false start, and even Joe grows to like him. Jill and Gregg's budding relationship becomes a subplot, not well developed but credible enough in light of the timeline. Unsurprisingly, he does the most stunt work of any human character.
A lot of the same people who worked on the '33 KK were involved in MJY, and I wasn't entirely sure that the technology had improved. Joe's size varies about as much as Kong's, and his movement is about as inauthentic. We do get more scenes that combine real footage and stop-motion, with a big hand from the late great Ray Harryhausen. It's still pretty disappointing after the first few scenes, with a real baby gorilla. (The only other real animals are lions; in light of their abuse at Joe's hands, I wonder how well they were treated on set.)
One thing that gives MJY the edge over KK is that it's ultimately less ridiculous. Joe is the only truly infeasible thing in it, and not to the same extent as Kong. While the spoken "Swahili" is fake, the African natives don't seem insulting; only the stage show makes caricatures of them. The adventure aspects are less constant and don't make death look cheap. The love between Joe and Jill is basically familial, neither romantic nor one-sidedly lustful. Yes, the stage is criminally unsafe for both performers and audience members, but I could believe in that level of danger at the time, not least with O'Hara wanting to maximize thrills to sell tickets.
Above all, as I suspected, MJY has a good dose of heart. It's easy to feel sorry for Joe, who's admirably patient with human tormentors and has about the right compromise of human expressiveness and gorilla behavior. Jill can be pretty naive, but she's too nice for anyone to get angry at her. For all O'Hara's slickness, he does feel guilty enough to put his career on the line to help in the third act. And contrivance allows Joe to act as a hero in the nick of time. The ending is sweeter than I anticipated.
So yeah, I do prefer it to both the 1933 and 2005 KK, as well as The Lost World (1925). It knows better than to try only for escapist excitement. Heartwarming is timeless.
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