Ape (aka A.P.E.)

This review is for the Blu-Ray version of 'A*P*E* 3-D' released in March, 2017 by Kino Lorber.If you have have never heard of this movie and you are looking to buy it based on the cover art.....move on.....seriously, I'm not kidding....go find another movie. This movie is famously bad.The rating is for the overall release of the movie, extra's, 3D and quality.If you have any knowledge whatsoever of this movie then you will know that it is an incredibly low budget movie with horrendous effects and that it is known for its 'awfulness.'Therefore you are probably more interested in the quality of the release itself by Kino Lorber. That said....here we go....BLU-RAY: As I often state in my reviews, I have almost no knowledge of quality of film and how it is transferred and cleaned up. I can only go by what my eyes tell me. The transfer is certainly not perfect. There are a lot of imperfections throughout. It is still an improvement over the previous release. The imperfections are probably due to the way the movie was shot. Perhaps they were always there. Perhaps Kino Lorber didn't feel it was worth the effort to remove all the imperfections. There are plenty of imperfections throughout but nothing egregious that will ruin it. What you get is still the best version of this movie you will see. I've only watched this version once and it was in 3-D. Film historian, Chris Alexander, whose commentary track is available in this release points out some of the problems. He makes note of the fact that in the evening shots near the beginning of the movie, that the Ape is very difficult to see against the black background. A lot of the problems with the video of this movie are probably due to poor lighting for which the director had no budget for. Once again, I have almost no knowledge of video restoration...I'm sure there are others who will pitch in on this who have expertise.3-D: The 3-D was decent. I'm actually surprised to see that a movie of this budget actually had 3-D! I wouldn't say it was used to add anything to the movie ('It Came from Outer Space' comes to mind as a movie that used 3-D exceptionally well.) But it is there and there are a few scenes that were filmed just for purposes of 3-D. The Ape throws rocks and oil cans at the screen. You also have guns pointed at you and a few other items.EXTRA'S: There are several extra's with this release. They are:- Commentary track from Chris Alexander and historian Hillary Hess. I only listened to the first half hour with Chris Alexander. He basically talked about the production and the director and how the movie was made. It was quite good and I will go back and finish watching it.-Theatrical Trailer-Trailers for several other 3-D releases by Kino LorberThere are no subtitles.PLOT/SUMMARY: OK....here we go.....We open with two guys(among the worst actors you will ever see) on a boat(one of the worst model boats you will ever see) talking about their cargo. We learn that the giant Ape they are carrying is from Harlem and they are on their way to Disneyland....Huh?!?....Harlem?....A 35 foot tall ape just roaming about in Harlem?....I'd love to see them try that in today's politically correct charged environment in a movie made today.....they producers would be crucified for being racist. For those of you who don't know....Harlem is right smack in the middle of New York City. I hate to sound condescending but I find that in today's google, smart phone world, people have stopped learning geography and don't know where anything is outside of where they live. Well....that said Ape is supposed to be unconscious for the next 5 days. 5 seconds is more like it. We see an Ape hand and then an explosion. The Ape has apparently grown a few hundred feet in seconds or the boat magically shrunk to the size of a toy in seconds. Because in the next scene you can see the remains of the hull of the boat and that boat is considerably smaller than the Ape. We see a laughable fin of a shark and next thing you know the Ape has a dead shark in it's arms and starts shaking it around. This was a year after 'Jaws' started the summer blockbuster craze so obviously they were trying to cash in on that....trying. Ape defeats the dead shark and heads for shore. Ape attacks a factory for no apparent reason other than he is supposed to be a menace.Meanwhile movie star Marilyn Baker (Joanna Kerns, mom from Growing pains) arrives in South Korea to film a movie. Waiting for her is Tom Rose, a reporter. Apparently Tom and Marilyn used to date. Apparently things were 'moving too fast' so Tom has decided to follow Marilyn all over the world. Marilyn came half way across the world to star in a movie in which her love interest spends the whole movie trying to molest her and then chase her around when she runs. They also get aggravated when they have to do additional takes. This is ironic since many of the scenes of this movie look like they were filmed in just one take. During the filming of one of these scenes, Ape takes Marilyn hostage. Tom to the rescue. Captain Kim of the Korean armed forces is generous enough to allow Marilyn to hide out with his family at his home in Seoul.Ape goes on a rampage and terrorizes everyone and everything he sees. He sets out in search of Marilyn. Meanwhile, American Captain Davis (probably in this movie just for comic relief) is having trouble believing that there is a giant Ape running around. He sarcastically calls him 'King Kong.'Ape must have some sort of psychic bond with Marilyn because he manages to march through Seoul and find her at Captain Kim's house. How he does this is anybodies guess. She is in a windowless room so he just starts smashing through buildings and houses till he finds her. Apparently Seoul isn't that big (kidding).Eventually Captain Davis is convinced that there is a giant ape running around and sets out to defeat the Ape along with Captain Kim.In the movies most memorable scene, Ape gives the finger to the military.When we get to the final battle scene, Ape is standing on a pile of rubble. I suppose it was supposed to be a mountain. Once again I have to wonder about the seriousness of these scenes. The lighting is poor and it actually appears as if Ape is wiping his butt with Marilyn during part of this scene!During another scene, we have Ape tossing rocks at the soldiers. One problem here....the rocks are the same size relative to both the Ape and the soldiers. So what are supposed to be giant boulders being thrown from a 35 foot ape become only the size of rocks when they reach the soldiers. But what the hell...who would notice?****Spoiler Alert**** ....uhm....yeahhh.....spoiler......Ape is defeated and tenderly releases Marilyn before he expires. It's not as if the military cared that she was in the line of fire.PRODUCTION: This movie was made in South Korea with a miniscule budget. Reportedly it was about $25,000....and it shows.The Ape costume is easily the worst I have ever seen. It's almost inconceivable that they used such a poor costume. It is ragged. It has tears and holes and looks ridiculously bad. Why make the movie if you don't even have the budget to buy a new one from a costume shop.The acting at times is incredibly bad. Most notably the opening scene is beyond bad. From listening to the commentary we learn that this scene was shot at the very end. The actors were probably drunk and very much looked it. They were given alcohol to stay warm as it was very cold when this scene was shot.Some of the miniatures used for special effects were probably the worst I have ever seen. I'm not sure when some of the scenes were filmed. Perhaps they were filmed for padding at the end. Chris Alexander states that there were a lot of scenes added for padding. It almost looks as if they were filming a Saturday Night Live skit. Just take a look at the model boat and the model cow used. This just can't have been done seriously.The shark used to portray 'Jaws' was obviously dead. The scene was stupendously bad. You can see the actors t-shirt through a hole in the costume at several points and you can also see something inside the sharks mouth at certain points in an attempt to keep it's mouth open.The military gets a special thanks in the opening credits. I'm not so sure they were thrilled with the credit when they saw the movie. They were used for filming some scenes with helicopters and other ground assault vehicles.THOUGHT'S: Obviously if you are reading this review and have made it this far then you already know what you are in for and have very probably seen the movie and just want to see what someone else thinks of it. Well....if you are a lover of terrible movies then this one is one you want. Often the phrase 'so bad it's funny' is used for bad movies. I find that I don't find a lot of terrible movies very funny. But this one is, possibly intentionally so. Chris Alexander notes that the director may have given up at one point and deliberately made scenes ridiculous.I almost stopped watching this movie the first time I saw it because of the opening scene. I know that it was filmed last but I felt they shouldn't have put it at the beginning. Especially since they did have a small miniature city set that was at least respectable. But I kept going and the movie got better. That is to say it went from horrendous to just incredibly bad.There are actually some decent miniature sets. Though they are obviously just window dressing. Soon as they are ripped apart you can tell that they have no 'depth' and that they are just basically empty facades. But they look decent enough up until they get destroyed. There appears to be at least some effort put into making them look real.RECOMMENDATIONS/CONCLUSIONS: I give the movie zero stars for a monster (kaiju) movie or 4 stars if you are want to see a 'so bad it's funny' movie. It gets 3 stars for extra's. Mainly a decent commentary track. I'm not sure how to rate the quality of the print and 3-D. I'll call it 3 stars for each. I felt that the there is still room for improvement if anybody ever bothers to do the work. Subtitles would have been helpful at certain points.Overall 3 stars.Strictly for fans of bad movies. There is no other reason to buy this even if you are a fan of 3-D.

I had seen 'A*P*E' on VHS years ago, and loved it immediately. Fortunately, it is now available on DVD, and it is still as rancid as ever. Filled with atrocious acting, horrible dialogue, the, without question, lamest ape costume ever, and bizarre time consuming subplots, what more could a lover of Grade Z cinema want?'A*P*E' (I don't know what the asterisks are for) starts on a boat on which the 36 foot tall monkey is being taken to Disneyland. Contrary to the box art, this boat is not the 'Titanic'. He escapes, and immediately springs into action battling a big rubber shark. During the course of the movie he also does battle with the following: a snake; a student hang glider; a guinea pig (possibly hamster or gerbil) dressed up as a cow; the South Korean army; and some kung fu fighters armed with garden shears. Of course he falls for the only blonde in Korea; a visiting American movie star named 'Marilyn' (Hmmmmmm...), gives her some lustful eye rolls, and pursues her into Seoul. Along the way she talks to him with such amazingly bad lines as "Be gentle, big fella", which makes him positively swoon.In the opening the producers thank the US Army, but I am thinking that after watching the pathetic "Colonel Davis" attempt to match wits with the monkey, the Army might want to reconsider future support of giant ape films. We do get to see (seemingly) hours of the same stock footage of helicopters, tanks, and soldiers advancing, which yielded an observation about the helicopters. Interspersed with stock footage of real Huey and Cobra helicopters were, of course, the plastic miniatures that A*P*E swatted at. This is probably the worst example of model use ever seen on screen, and I am including Ed Wood's flying saucers from 'Plan 9' here. The strings are clearly visible, and the helicopters apparently do not require their rotors to spin to provide lift during the battle scenes. All of which brings me to my very favorite moment of the film: after downing a helicopter, A*P*E flips the unlucky chopper crew the bird. That is the scene that will stay with me forever from this film, and just by itself makes watching 'A*P*E' worthwhile.The movie also has lots of other bonuses scattered throughout: nightmare inducing scary Asian puppetry; repetitive Russian dance music playing loudly enough to drown out dialogue during all of Marilyn's acting scenes; revolting make-out scenes between Marilyn and 'Tom Rose' an annoying reporter who is on the spot to cover the A*P*E; and wonderful reaction shots when people stumble into the path of the 36 foot tall monkey without noticing him until they are in his paw (Marilyn specializes in this.) One further cinematic device that the director, Paul Leder, skillfully uses is having the A*P*E dance a free-form, seemingly drug induced dance throughout the entire film, including during the fight scenes. Genius, pure genius.In summation, this movie is not to be missed by anyone who adores the absolute bottom of the barrel dregs of filmmaking. An anti-masterwork if ever there was one. It would be perfectly suitable for everyone, except for swearing, which earned it a 'PG' rating. And oh, by the way, it is totally unlike that other, better known giant ape movie. That movie was in black and white, this one is in color!At the conclusion of the film, Tom Rose sums it up (in a very Ed Wood sounding way) thusly: "He was just too big for a small world like ours." Oh, the humanity!

M-a-a-a-a-a-n this film is bad. Which, admittedly, makes it very fun to watch! This is especially true when viewed with your MST3K-loving buddies! You will all find yourselves easily riffing like seasoned professionals at this undercooked turkey. Indeed, just the ominous smell alone that emanates from this film while watching it will become quite noticeable in your room immediately. Ahh yes, that sweet smell of the worst parts of the 70's...I will say though that the 3D is good. Really good. Waaaaay too good for a movie like this! Assuredly, it contributes significantly in making this a rollicking party trick! The 3D is impressive (at times), fun, and definitely brings the goods! Yet still.. the overall effect is not unlike reviewing a polished turd under a microscope, if you're into that sort of thing. (Aww who am I kidding, it's not polished at all!)So in summation, it's not King Kong... every iteration of which (even the supercampy King Kong vs. Godzilla) puts A*P*E to absolute shame. Still, you can very easily enjoy this movie if you go into it knowing that it's bad. How bad, you say? Did I not make it clear enough already?? Ever hear of the Razzies? The peeps behind the Razzie Awards published a book in 2005 called The Official Razzie Movie Guide [Enjoying the Best of Hollywood's Worst] (ASIN : B00FORPKRC). Is it remotely possible that this film snuck it's way into that book? Pshsh! This stinkburger made it to the freaking COVER!! Alone even! Apparently the depiction of this ape flipping us off was allllll that was needed to represent the Guide's deliciously dubious contents..Yeah, it's bad!So what are ya waiting for?? Go watch it!

Hilariously fun movie a bit like Schlock. For a micro budget film it has some of the best 3D I've seen. Highly recommend.

Hat alles gut geklappt,danke!

Gut

The 4 stars are for the 3D transfer, it is an excellent restoration, and looks fantastic. The 3D rates 5 stars, its that good, but the movie is barely 2 stars and that's because it's so bad its almost funny. Terrible everything, but in 3D it was a fun view. Just a heads up for those viewers with active 3D glasses the opening credits will appear off, if you close your right eye the credits disappear, I did some online research and that's not an error it's due to the mechanics of active glasses.

When the ship carrying the giant ape blows up he wades off into the sea and comes face to face with a giant rubber shark, what a great start. He then wades ashore and lays waste to a coastal town.The 36ft moth-eaten colossus interrupts a movie production and kidnaps actress Joanna Kerns who takes the Fay Wray role here. It's then a race to rescue her and to stop the ape as it moves towards Seoul.This USA/South Korean co-production is a gem that anyone who loves low budget movies should not miss. It was originally filmed ion 3-D which is why so many objects keep coming towards the camera. The budget was pretty low the army has a couple of jeeps, toy helicopters on strings, there's toy ships and toy towns, lots of screaming and lots of repeated sets especially the 2 US military men in the same office and lots more screaming.Just try and keep track of how the size of the ape's scale changes throughout the film.