5 Movies To Welcome 2016: The Year of the Monkey

The Year of the Monkey is 2016 or so my Chinese take-out napkins tell me and that got me thinking, “When was the last time I watched a good monkey movie?” Here’s my list of essential throwback flicks to kick off the new year.

Planet of the Apes

I don’t know what’s more implausible about this film: that Mark Wahlberg is playing a super intelligent scientist/astronaut or that he falls in love with an ape played by Helena Bonham Carter.

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So here’s the deal. Dr. Marky Mark is aboard some sort of space station teaching chimpanzees how to pilot space ships. During an electromagnetic storm, he gets sucked into the future and crash lands on an uncharted planet where he is sold into slavery by Paul Giamatti dressed as an orangutan.

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My final verdict is that every Mark Wahlberg fan should watch this movie at least once, just to realize how far he’s come. I have absolutely no idea how this film is tied to Rise of the Planet of Apes, starring James Franco, and Dawn of the Planet of Apes with Andy Serkis and Jason Clarke. TBH, It’s probably best not to worry about continuity.

King Kong

I have been a long time fan of both Adrien Brody and Jack Black so putting Peter Jackson’s 2005 King Kong on this list is an obvious choice. While Black’s character ended up being a real jerk, Brody’s did not disappoint. He plays screenwriter Jack Driscoll, the besotted love interest of Naomi Watts.

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After watching the film, my conclusion is that humans can be real assholes. By the end, I just wanted King Kong to make it back to his jungle home and for Jack Black’s character to suffer a slow, painful death. Also there were dinosaurs for no apparent reason and Jack Black killed them too.

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Project X

Just to continue my theme that humans are the worst, let’s talk 1987’s Project X starring Matthew Broderick. In this film, scientists have decided – again – to teach chimpanzees how to fly planes. Why is that a thing? It really should not be a thing. Broderick plays pilot Jimmy Garrett who grows a conscience when the government orders him to “dispose of” the test subjects.

I remember watching this movie as a kid and becoming an animal activist shortly thereafter. This movie is particularly timely considering the US Fish and Wildlife Service announced in 2015 that it is categorizing captive chimpanzees as an endangered species subject to legal protections. The new rule will bar most invasive research on chimpanzees.

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12 Monkeys

Okay, so this one has very little to do with actual monkeys, but it does star Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt. Willis’s character time travels back from the year 2027 in order to stop a deadly plague that wipes out most of humanity in 1996. A vigilante group, led by Pitt’s character, is supposedly responsible for spreading the virus. Chaos and plot holes ensue, leaving me totally clueless as to what the hell happened by the end of the film. Still, 1990’s Brad Pitt…

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Monkey Kingdom

I’m going to close out this list with an honest to goodness movie about real monkeys. Monkey Kingdom (2015) is a Disneynature documentary that follows a family of macaques, led by their matriarch “Maya” in South Asia.

I become strangely engrossed in these sorts of documentaries and, apparently, so does everyone else. Monkey Kingdom has a 94% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Every movie has it’s critics, though, as evidenced by this Youtube commenter.

I’m sorry about your rice cooker, pre Sam, but don’t take it out on the cute monkeys.

I know, I didn’t include Monkey Trouble from 1994 and it was a travesty. What are your favorite ape themed movies for celebrating the Year of the Monkey*?

_{*Yes, wildlife nerds, I know gorillas, orangutans and chimpanzees are not monkeys.}