The Reality Register has long been known for the most accurate, stringent book reviews available online, but movies have thus far been left out of the mix. Always looking to innovate, I asked my editor if he would pay me to write a review of Dolemite. He rudely declined, saying that the movie is almost 50 years old and is borderline unwatchable, outside of the scenes in the trailer.
While we agreed to disagree on that point, he looked up the local showtimes with a Bing search, and suggested the new release “Monkey Man” instead. Intrigued, I asked what the film was about, he just laughed and said, “A monkey man that does karate, it sounds awesome.” My interest piqued by such a novel and interesting concept, I readily agreed and managed to get a popcorn stipend in addition to the price of a matinee ticket. Our readers never click the ads on www,therealityregister.com, so I was on my own when it came to buying a soda.
Arriving too late to catch the previews, I sat in the front row, and watched as some Indian guy wore a monkey mask, did some kind of John Wick impersonation and hung out with a bunch of ugly ladies. It seemed like I wasn’t even in the right theater for a moment, the movie on screen was so far removed from my expectations. It was all shaky cam fight scenes and flashbacks, with some undercurrents about corruption or social justice or something during the eternally boring middle parts. I couldn’t really pay attention, because I was so flabbergasted that this great title was wasted on this dreck! Where were all the monkeys? Was that mask the titular Monkey Man?
Who cares about Indian politics? Not me, I don’t even care about American politics. I care about cryptids, and monsters and ghosts and Draculas, and telling the truth! When I sit down to see a movie called Monkey Man, I want to see a monkey with the cunning of a man, or a man with the wild energy and stamina of a monkey, or maybe even some sort of situation where a man and a monkey get merged together, or switch bodies and try to pick up babes, or SOMETHING other than yet another neon revenge action flick.
A better idea would be a chimp like Caesar from Planet of the Apes who learns martial arts from a cool black karate journalist. Together, they kick monsters and litterers and the like. By the end, some jerk who runs a newspaper would try to get them to fight each other, and instead they’d team up and he’d beg for forgiveness – forgiveness that he would not receive. He would receive kicks from both man AND monkey. THAT is the kind of thing people want to see.
Anyway, the popcorn was pretty good but the soda seemed a little diluted. Overall, the movie was a 3 out of 5, and it was nice to get out of the house for a bit.
Mohammed Sinclair
