The Top 10 Best Movie Apes
I’m Ape-Static to Share this List of Movie Apes with You!
Despite Hollywood showing obvious favoritism towards “man’s best friend” and “man’s ambivalent roommate,” audiences still delight at the shenanigans of movie apes. Heck, back in the early days of cinema you could slap some roller skates on a chimp, call it a plot, and moviegoers would eat it up. These days we might expect a bit more from primates on the big screen, but the sentiment still holds true. That’s why I’m honoring our not too distant cousins from the animal kingdom with a list of the best movie apes of all time. I’m sticking to “live-action” movies for this list but will include computer-generated characters so long as they’re gibbons, gorillas, orangutans, bonobos, chimpanzees, or otherwise simian-esque. Now, it’s time to knock off the monkey business, because this list is strictly for movie apes and it’s ready to swing into action!
10. George- Rampage
Hollywood likes to “go big” with movie apes, and George is only the first character on this list who takes that literally. Inspired by the character in the button-mashing video game of the same name, George is not just a giant gorilla, but an albino one. It’s almost as though one unique and impressive trait wasn’t enough for the primate. Then again, the same principle applies to every character in the film. George’s co-star (Dwayne Johnson) for example, plays not just a primatologist, but also a former Special-Forces captain who is also part of an anti-poaching task force. That should give you an idea of exactly what kind of mindless fun you’ll get with this blockbuster. The finale features George throwing down with a giant wolf that can also fly and a gargantuan mutant alligator nearly destroys Chicago. Say what you will about Rampage, but there’s no denying George is definitely one of the more unique movie apes of all time.
9. Dunston- Dunston Checks In
Business was booming for movie apes back in the 90s and every half-baked family comedy was mixing them into the plot. It was the golden age of “meh” and the creme de la creme was Dunston Checks In. The movie is about an orangutan trained to be a master thief smuggled into a swanky New York City hotel. As I’m sure you can guess, Dunston isn’t exactly Danny Ocean, and he shockingly fails in his mission to rob the guests of their jewels. Instead, he has adventures with two boys who live in the hotel because their overworked dad is the manager. The point is, Dunston Checks In is iconic for being a truly awful movie. It’s so terrible that the few positive reviews have to be ironic (Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times called the movie “as light as a soufflé and just as delicious.”). However, there’s a certain je ne sais quoi to this special level of bad, and that’s earned Dunston, the orangutang master jewel thief, a spot.
8. King Louie- The Jungle Book
One of the first experiments by Disney into live-action remakes of their classic animated films was Jon Favreau’s The Jungle Book. Disney must have liked what he did, because they called upon Favreau again for The Lion King and The Jungle Book 2. He also gets the distinction of having his take on the King of the Monkey’s, King Louie, included among the best movie apes of all time. The original animated film depicted Louie as an orangutan, but the 2016 version got an upgrade and the character was reimagined as a Gigantopithecus. If you’re like me, you’re probably asking, “What in the heck is a Giganto-whose-it?” Well, it’s an extinct primate that’s like an orangutan but about 12 feet tall. This Louie is not only larger than life but also voiced by the incomparable Christopher Walken. Trust me when I say, you’ll never get the image of a Gigantopithecus singing and dancing, especially when he’s voiced by Walken.
7. Amy- Congo
This isn’t the first Stars & Popcorn list to feature Amy the Gorilla, though it is the reason she earned a spot among the best movie apes as well. Congo is an unholy cinematic abomination adapted from the novel by Michael Crichton, but it does feature a heroic gorilla proficient in American Sign Language. It was Amy who actually taught me how to sign “ugly gorilla, go away”, which hasn’t come in handy as much as you might think. Still, there’s a certain charisma to Amy, thanks to some pretty impressive creature acting by Lola Noh. This was all back before motion-capture CGI, so Noh had to run around set in a gorilla suit which boldly went against the long-standing tradition of terrible gorilla suits in movies. Then again, that’s part of the fun with movie apes. They always show up in comedies or whimsical sci-fi blockbusters, many of which end up being so awful they’re fun.
6. Clyde- Every Which Way But Loose
Cinema has a tradition of making truckers more colorful and quirky than necessary. Take Clint Eastwood’s Philo Beddoe, a trucker turned bare-knuckle boxer with a pet orangutan named Clyde. Yep, it seems like “Philo” is a little too desperate to seem interesting, but lucky for us he dragged Clyde into his misadventures long haul trucking and punching people. While Philo might not be the most approachable guy in the world, Clyde helps take the edge off the gruff-old-man-in-the-making with his antics. You might notice that I only included Every Which Way But Loose and not the sequel, Any Which Way You Can. Well, that’s for two reasons, 1) why on Earth would you make a sequel, and more seriously 2) PETA reported some serious animal abuse on the set that might have led to the death of the orangutan playing Clyde. That depressing note aside, Clyde is still one of the best movie apes of all time.