A legendary fifteen-foot tall mountain gorilla named Joe is taken to an animal sanctuary in California by zoologist Gregg O'Hara (Bill Paxton) and Jill Young (Charlize Theron), with whom he ... Read allA legendary fifteen-foot tall mountain gorilla named Joe is taken to an animal sanctuary in California by zoologist Gregg O'Hara (Bill Paxton) and Jill Young (Charlize Theron), with whom he grew up. Poacher Strasser (Rade Serbedzija) returns from the past to seek vengeance on Joe... Read allA legendary fifteen-foot tall mountain gorilla named Joe is taken to an animal sanctuary in California by zoologist Gregg O'Hara (Bill Paxton) and Jill Young (Charlize Theron), with whom he grew up. Poacher Strasser (Rade Serbedzija) returns from the past to seek vengeance on Joe.
- Nominated for 1 Oscar
- 1 win & 4 nominations total
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaSince Gorillas in the Mist (1988), Rick Baker stated that he wouldn't do any more projects that involved creating animatronic apes. Baker had to break that statement when he did Baby's Day Out (1994), which featured a gorilla scene. After that, Baker restated he would not do any more ape projects, but when he got called to work on this movie, Baker's love for the original film changed his mind. He also saw it as a chance for redemption for King Kong (1976) since he designed the King Kong suit and portrayed Kong himself. This movie was the last for which Baker created an animatronic gorilla suit. He later added Planet of the Apes (2001), starring Mark Wahlberg, to his ape-centric résumé.
- GoofsPart of the film is set in California. In Los Angeles and at the carnival near the beach, there are police cars with their colored lights on. All the police cars are missing a steady red light in the front. By the California vehicle code, all emergency and law enforcement vehicles are required to have a steady red light facing forward.
- Quotes
Cecily Banks: [has just gotten word that Joe had arrived at the zoo] Okay, people! Elvis is in the building!
- Alternate versionsGerman video and DVD versions are edited for violence (capturing of the gorilla, transport of the gorilla in the city, escape of the gorilla, explosion of the ferris wheel) to get a more family friendly "Not under 6" rating. The uncut version (rated "Not under 12") was shown several times on pay-TV channel Premiere World (now Sky Germany).
- ConnectionsEdited into Attack of the 50 Foot Monster Mania (1999)
A toned-down remake of the 1949 monster movie (not that the original was violent or so) by Disney, MIGHTY JOE YOUNG is enjoyably pleasant nonetheless. There's a lot of enjoyable moments here to entice kids and adults alike. It's fun, without being too loud, too lumbering and too overproduced unlike other summer affair of the time. It could use more, but enough just seems to be enough. There's a good dosage of fine adventure movie elements. There's action, adventure, humor and even romance.
The romance is created between two of the lead characters. Bill Paxton as an explorer named Gregg O'Hara and a Charlize Theron as Jill Young, a daughter of a late famous Jane Goodall-inspired scientist. There's chemistry between those two, even if it's not entirely developed. It's also a simple boy-likes-the-girl chemistry, but it works well and I bought it. Ask for the adventure, there are numerous action scenes which takes place both in the jungle in even in the city, which shows a scenes directly derived but not entirely similarly to the scene from KING KONG. The special effects by Rick Baker, who actually started doing apes in a somewhat cheesy outcome during the 70's remake of KING KONG, are fine here in the film. There's a convincing use of blue screen and the typical man-in-a-suit technique that actually is less evident here.
Director Ron Underwood (TREMORS) brings a lot of excitement in this familiar territory. The film cannot escape the multitudes of clichés that marred this old genre to the ground. Some things about MIGHTY JOE YOUNG are familiar, as a toned-down kids flick. I've learned the lesson before, there's no one that harshly gets hurt in this film, except the bad guys who must get their just desserts in the end. But the film is lively and enjoyable enough for me to recommend. This is decent family entertainment.
Rating: *** out of 5.
- vip_ebriega
- May 25, 2008
- How long is Mighty Joe Young?Powered by Alexa
Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Official site
- Languages
- Also known as
- Могутній Джо Янґ
- Filming locations
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $90,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $50,632,037
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $10,602,042
- Dec 27, 1998
- Gross worldwide
- $50,632,037
- Runtime1 hour 54 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1