Rotten Tomatoes

Movies / TV

    Celebrity

      No Results Found

       View All       Movies Tv shows Shop News Showtimes

      Summer of the Monkeys

      G Released Sep 13, 1998 1h 41m Drama List
      Reviews 65% 1,000+ Ratings Audience Score A farming couple's (Michael Ontkean, Leslie Hope) son tries to raise money for a pony by capturing a quartet of escaped circus monkeys. Read More Read Less

      Audience Reviews

      View All (52) audience reviews
      Audience Member The late Canadian Film maker Michael Anderson takes Wilson Rawl's 1976 novel and takes Jumanji writers Jim Strain, and Greg Taylor and makes a sorry excuse for an book adaptation. Summer of the monkeys is a completely forgettable film that really doesn't get the point across. It's a waste of 1 hour and 41 minutes that you completely forget what just happened the music is absurd the editing is a complete joke with too many transitions. The writing is very unfaithful to the original book. With 95% filler and only 5% staying true to the book it's a film that's a complete waste of time. The fact that Disney saw potential in this movie and called it their own when the movie wasn't even made by Disney is crazy. They call it's Disney's Classic coming of age adventure what wasn't Bambi not good enough for them? (The Disney DVD of the film called it's self "A Heartwarming Adventure in the Great Disney Tradition of Old Yeller" ) I can tell they were trying way to hard to get people to buy this film Jay Barry Lee is an adolescent farm boy who wants to get a pony but he doesn't have the money so he works in is grandfathers store but when he hears about a group of circus monkeys that ran away he becomes determined to capture the monkeys. However what stands in his way are chores set forth by his stringent and overbearing parents John and Sarah when Jay Barry slightly slips up the house gets destroyed by monkeys, Jay Barry gets severely punished for it and gets forced to remain in his room to reflect on his wrongdoings to which he runs away from home only for his grandpa to convince him to return home. It isn't heartwarming until the very end with Jay Barry want Daisy to walks again and his father saying that he's proud and that Jay Barry grew 10 feet tall in his eyes and Daisy breaking down sobbing knowing that she will be able to walk again. Now all that aside I have to say I don't blame the director Michael Anderson as he had good shots in the film. I don't blame the cinematographer Michael Storey as he did a fair job filming the film and taking rural Saskatchewan Canada resemble Oklahoma. I also don't blame the actors and actresses as they are trying their best for the script they are giving and the characters they are portraying. I do blame the editor Lenka Svab as the editing is pointless and poorly done. I also blame the Music orchestrator George Blondheim as he focuses to hard on the overtop zany and it's heavily distracting. The ones I do blame wholeheartedly are the writers Jim Strain and Greg Taylor are the sole reason why this movie sucks. They butchered the book and it's so shameful to the author who poured his soul into writing the book that the writers of Jumanji destroyed by adding characters that weren't part of the book and what they put in is the moral of the importance of family as well as consequences and morals of not obeying. For Disney seeing potential in this film was so disgraceful for Disney to do it isn't worthy of the G Rating either should have been PG rated instead. If Metro Goldwyn Mayer or Warner Bros distributed this film it would have done well but Disney distributing this film is so disrespectful they dug a hole with this film. In fact once this film begins there is no mention of Disney instead it open up with it saying "Bonneville Worldwide Entertainment Distribution INC presents" but it's done incompetently with it shortening down to (BWE) Overall Summer of The Monkeys is aIt's a completely forgettable, disgraceful and shameful movie that fails on every level and is a slap to the face to Wilson Rawls who wrote the book to begin with. Read the book instead it's much better the movie will disappoint everyone and the messages will loose interest in younger members. Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 02/14/23 Full Review steve d Doesn't separate itself from the herd. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 03/30/23 Full Review Audience Member Wonderful book. Terrible movie. Makes me wonder if they even read the book. Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 01/20/23 Full Review Audience Member Sales pitch: "Hey, we could make a movie from that one book that everyone loves by Willson Rawls." "You mean Where The Red Fern Grows?" "No, Summer Of The Monkeys" "Oh. Well, that book has like fifty moneys in it, and I don't think it would be easy to train them all for the shooting. Someone might get bitten." "How about we just trim it down to four monkeys?" "That sounds like a good idea." "And maybe to make it easier, and for the audience to like it more, let's take out every memorable and good moment from the book, and replace it with something dumb and pointless to the story." "Brilliant!" That's what Summer Of The Monkeys Is. It takes a classic book and destroys it, There are no successful heartfelt moments, random scenes that have nothing to do with the story whatsoever, and the characters are weak. I would highly recommend the book to a friend, but the movie is painful to watch (In the wrong way), weird, pointless, boring, and is just plain bad. Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 02/16/23 Full Review Audience Member omg i saw this movie a long time ago and now i want to see it again soo bad lol Rated 5 out of 5 stars 01/14/23 Full Review Audience Member Someone at Disney definitely got canned for green-lighting this film. Possibly even shot and dismembered with an old buoy knife. Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 02/16/23 Full Review Read all reviews Post a rating

      Cast & Crew

      Show Less Cast & Crew Show More Cast & Crew

      Photos

      View All Summer of the Monkeys photos

      Summer of the Monkeys

      Summer of the Monkeys (1998) Summer of the Monkeys (1998) Summer of the Monkeys (1998) Summer of the Monkeys (1998) Summer of the Monkeys (1998) Summer of the Monkeys (1998) View more photos

      Critics Reviews

      View All (3) Critics Reviews
      Rachel Wagner Rachel's Reviews (YouTube) A sweet family film particularly the relationship between brother and sister Sep 19, 2022 Full Review Scott G. Mignola Common Sense Media A heartwarming chimp tale. Rated: 4/5 Jan 2, 2011 Full Review Emanuel Levy EmanuelLevy.Com Rated: 2/5 Oct 2, 2005 Full Review Read all reviews

      Movie Info

      Synopsis A farming couple's (Michael Ontkean, Leslie Hope) son tries to raise money for a pony by capturing a quartet of escaped circus monkeys.
      Director
      Michael Anderson
      Producer
      David Doerksen, Ellen Freyer, Chris Harding
      Screenwriter
      Wilson Rawls, Jim Strain
      Rating
      G
      Genre
      Drama
      Original Language
      English
      Release Date (Theaters)
      Sep 13, 1998, Original
      Release Date (Streaming)
      Mar 2, 2020
      Runtime
      1h 41m
      Aspect Ratio
      Flat (1.85:1)