“Shock The Monkey” has nothing to do with animal testing. But it does make an appropriate theme song.
After ‘WarGames’ in 84, where he successfully played a kid, I believe this is Broderick’s first real “grown-up” role. Unlike ‘WarGames’, this movie is not terribly dated. It’s actually quite well-written and well-acted, and the sympathy it evokes in me is real.
Here’s my take on omnivores: As one, I feel no responsibility to act any better or worse than is expected of any other. Therefore, as all other omnivores do, I eat both plants and animals. No other omnivore is criticized for behaving as is in its nature. However, by the same reasoning, no other omnivore kills, or even hurts, another animal unless it is in direct self-defense of self or “family”, or to eat them. They don’t do it for sport, or “research”, or “enjoyment” (see sadist).
That’s why animal testing shows that we are, in fact, lower than chimps if we watch this movie and do NOT feel great sympathy for them and great resentment at the humans willingly doing things such as this to them. Human beings are the only natural life forms that ever behave contrary to the basic laws of nature. No wonder we’re the only ones actually destroying the nature that provides us with life.
All that being said…after the initial premise is established and taken to its logical conclusion, how much do you really want to watch “Chimpanzees Gone Wild”/”The Great Chimp Escape”?
I said I felt sympathy for the chimps, not the movie.
Inspirational Characters: Virgil/J. Garrett
Grade: C+