The week began with a bang, or rather, a jolt. The Drool-o-tron™ signaled us with its blaring sirens and flashing lights. The blinking letters of the wall display said WorldNetDaily (WND) — thus the jolly buffoon logo above this post.
Their headline is When monkeys have better morals than humans, and it has this subtitle: “Exclusive: Drew Zahn reviews Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.” Yes, dear reader, WND has their very own movie reviewer, to guide us in matters of popular culture. Zahn says, with bold font added by us:
The original, 1968 “Planet of the Apes” is a Hollywood classic, praised for its creative premise, an iconic performance from Charlton Heston, ahead-of-its time special effects and one of the greatest shock endings in moviemaking history. And while the sequel-prequel in theaters now, “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes,” isn’t quite destined to be a “classic,” it does at least do the original justice by endeavoring to offer a thoughtful, meaningful, science fiction story, and not just a summer spectacle.
The review starts calmly, but we’re anticipating some fun here. Creationists’ view of apes is like your view of that embarrassingly simple-minded and socially crude uncle who mostly lives out in the country, but who makes occasional visits and disgraces not only himself, but you and your family.
What is it that you feel on such occasions? It’s bothersome that you have to put up with someone like that. You wish he would just go away and never return, so that in time, his existence can be forgotten. But that’s not the worst part, which is knowing that you are so closely related to him. The implications for you and your offspring deeply disturbing.
And so it is with creationists and apes. Then we’re told:
The tale picks up 10 years after the 2011 film “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” untold years before the 1968 storyline. A virus has wiped out nearly all human life on earth, but the apes that were chemically enhanced and escaped from science labs in “Rise” now rule the forests around San Francisco under their human-like leader, Caesar. And this is a movie all about Caesar.
Okay, but let’s skip around for the creationist reactions. Ah, it begins:
Unfortunately, the human characters in the film are flat and dull, my only significant criticism of the film and the one factor that holds this movie back from being a masterpiece. Half the characters in this film are fantastic; the other side … a bit undeveloped. This leaves the apes to carry the bulk of the story and communicate the primary message. The lessons they teach, fittingly, are as simple as the language they speak.
“Apes not kill apes,” is the first of the ape commandments, a rule Caesar must obey, no matter how difficult, in order to lead by example. Caesar also preaches and illustrates the key virtues, “Home, family, future,” while living in stark opposition to the vices of hate, bigotry and war.
Egad — apes behaving virtuously! This is an outrage! Let’s read on:
Surprisingly, the film doesn’t push the usual, leftist worldview: Humans aren’t inherently evil or a plight [sic] on the Earth; despite talking about “hate” in the vicinity of San Francisco, there’s no homosexual overtones … no, it’s just a good, old-fashioned science fiction film with anything but old-fashioned special effects.
San Francisco without homosexuals? WND thinks that’s an omission worth mentioning. The review concludes with this:
Though a bit violent for some, even frightening for others, many science fiction fans and summer movie audiences should consider it a must-see movie.
Very surprising. Oh, and as WND always does, they add this Content advisory at the end, which mentions:
• “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes,” rated PG-13, contains roughly 20 profanities and obscenities.
• The sum total of the film’s sexuality is a kiss.
• There is no significant religious or occult content.
It’s not the review we were expecting. One gets the impression that WND is actually recommending the movie. That’s probably because it doesn’t mention anything about evolution, or our kinship with the apes. We’re confident that if there were even a hint of that, the review would have taken a different course. That’s a significant omission, but hey — it’s Hollywood, so we shouldn’t expect any science in their science fiction.
The real entertainment is in the comments after the review. WND’s readers never disappoint us.
Copyright © 2014. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.
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The Sensuous Curmudgeon 
“there’s no homosexual overtones”
There ARE no homosexual overtones!
These kinds of errors is making me crazy!
Spot on, Crumudgeon: the review’s pretty good and most of the comments so far are pretty awful.
Humans [not] being inherently evil
Doesn’t that touch on a Christian view – at least a Calvinist or fundamentalist or some variety-ist: that humans – isn’t the word “depraved”?
I never watched any of the earlier films, but I understand that they featured conflict between an alliance of ape species (and baboons?) against human beings. They would have been more accurate if the plots had chimpanzees allied to us. With what I can gather from the review, this latest might have been closer to reality. Perhaps WND missed that?
I usually limit myself to movies with less than ten profanities, but this sounds like a good one without any libtard agenda, so maybe I will go see it.
I watched the Wolf of Wall Street the other night. Holds the record for number of f-bombs. Didn’t faze me a bit. In fact, reminded me of my cherished workplace.
Old joke. Kid comes home from college for Thanksgiving. At dinner he says, “Pass the effing potatoes.” Everybody is stunned to silence. Finally his Mom says, “Now, Billy, you know we don’t talk like that around here.” Chagrined, Billy rephrases, “Pass the effing potatoes, please.”
As for limiting my movie going experience to less than ten profanities, h-bells, I go through double that just getting from the [edited out] ticket window to the [edited out] door!
docbill1351 says: ” Holds the record for number of f-bombs. Didn’t faze me a bit. In fact, reminded me of my cherished workplace.”
As I recall from my long ago, non-combat service in the Army, a new recruit would say: “I enlisted in January, and now it’s Sep-[effing]-tember.”
I think Full Metal jacket is way up there with profanities in one movie. I don’t think the trainer had any sentence where he didn’t utter [edited out]!
From what I’ve seen of the previews, Hollywood has managed to ruin a potentially good movie the way it has many recent SF flicks: by drowning it in effects. Apes don’t fly, for example, but you’d hardly know it from the super-acrobatics they’re shown performing. (Chimps spend most of their time on the ground, gorillas–because of their weight–just about all of it.)
I really want to avoid that sight, so I wonder if the reviewer bothered to mention that the “creative premise” was from a 1963 novel by Pierre Boulle?
Not bother, “bothered”, sorry.
[*Voice from above*] All is as it should be.