Perhaps in revenge for the five films that exploited his species, the "schlockoporous" is on a murderous spree and thousands of victims are discovered, with only bananas as evidence. Through the wacky mind of John Landis ("Animal House", "The Blues Brothers") comes this silly and mostly unfunny horror spoof that overdoes it on stupid characters, ridiculous names and idiotic pratfalls.
There's also a very bizarre sequence in a movie theater where the monster goes to see "The Blob", deals hysterically with a woman in a hat (with bigger hair!), a boy who needs an escort to the bathroom, and a football player sized black man. He tears a car apart and reacts to the driver as if he was Oliver Hardy. But any creature who plays the piano and likes milk with his cake can't be all bad. This monkey business is completely bananas, goes on far too long (even at just 80 minutes), and doesn't succeed in making memorable at what it apes.
Not only does this movie rip off the type of humor done much funnier in the Beach Party movies, it rips off Johnny Carson's recurring phony movie title skit from The Tonight Show. A letter falling off the police station sign out of nowhere is as funny as this gets with the gorilla claiming his victims in the most harmless of ways that is supposed to make him stronger than your average zoo gorilla. I admit that I did like the game of raspberries between the boy playing baseball and the gorilla, stupid I realize, but strangely amusing to my inner child. There's also product placement here, showing the gorilla reacting to the Chiquita banana logo like the prehistoric man in "2001" (same music, too!), something I'm surprised that didn't create a lawsuit.
Between the Prince Albert in a can jokes and other really wretchedly ridiculous parodies, this is an example of why most comic spoofs of the "Airplane!" and "Naked Gun" variety failed miserably. Forget about seeing any real attempts at acting here. The people on screen, if acting in a commercial, would make me decide NOT to buy the product. The mentality is 10 year old boy, 1973 style (my age that year), and I realized that if you watch this through that perspective, you might be amused, if you aren't too ashamed to admit it.
There's also a very bizarre sequence in a movie theater where the monster goes to see "The Blob", deals hysterically with a woman in a hat (with bigger hair!), a boy who needs an escort to the bathroom, and a football player sized black man. He tears a car apart and reacts to the driver as if he was Oliver Hardy. But any creature who plays the piano and likes milk with his cake can't be all bad. This monkey business is completely bananas, goes on far too long (even at just 80 minutes), and doesn't succeed in making memorable at what it apes.
Not only does this movie rip off the type of humor done much funnier in the Beach Party movies, it rips off Johnny Carson's recurring phony movie title skit from The Tonight Show. A letter falling off the police station sign out of nowhere is as funny as this gets with the gorilla claiming his victims in the most harmless of ways that is supposed to make him stronger than your average zoo gorilla. I admit that I did like the game of raspberries between the boy playing baseball and the gorilla, stupid I realize, but strangely amusing to my inner child. There's also product placement here, showing the gorilla reacting to the Chiquita banana logo like the prehistoric man in "2001" (same music, too!), something I'm surprised that didn't create a lawsuit.
Between the Prince Albert in a can jokes and other really wretchedly ridiculous parodies, this is an example of why most comic spoofs of the "Airplane!" and "Naked Gun" variety failed miserably. Forget about seeing any real attempts at acting here. The people on screen, if acting in a commercial, would make me decide NOT to buy the product. The mentality is 10 year old boy, 1973 style (my age that year), and I realized that if you watch this through that perspective, you might be amused, if you aren't too ashamed to admit it.