IMPORTANT NOTE: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.
Released: 2nd February
Seen: 9th September
Journey to the West is a 16th-century Chinese story that follows the adventures of four major characters, Tripitaka, Pigsy, Sandy and The Monkey King. This story is regarded as one of the greatest Chinese novels of all time, has been translated into an abridged English language version, is the subject of multiple adaptations in every medium you could think of and is a truly important piece of work that I haven’t read or even heard about before doing background research for this review of the Netflix animated film The Monkey King, which adapts that characters specific story from the original text. It’s important to tell you that I have not read the original text because I cannot tell you if this is a faithful adaptation of it (though based on the Wikipedia description, it seems to get the core beats of the story correctly) but I can tell you if it’s a good kids movie… which it is.
The Monkey King starts with the titular Monkey King (Jimmy O. Yang) who was born from a stone and tries to join a tribe of local monkeys, but his impulsive nature makes him someone who is easily outcast from the tribe and even blamed by the elders of that tribe when a demon comes to grab another baby monkey. In an attempt to win the elders over, the Monkey King trains in order to be able to fight the demons and save the children but when that also proves ineffective the Monkey King goes to steal a special staff from the underwater Dragon King (Bowen Yang).
Of course, this powerful weapon means that the Monkey King can stop the demons but presents a new problem, namely the staff should only be wielded by the gods and so, logically, the Monkey King goes to become a god by whatever means he can. His trip is aided by an assistant named Lin (Jolie Hoang-Rappaport) who joins him on his quest to become an immortal god.
The Monkey King is one of those animated films that tend to lean more towards the Looney Tunes style of over-the-top fast-paced comedic animation as opposed to something more slow and ponderous, playing everything as zany and energetic as possible while rapidly firing out physical gags like there was no tomorrow. With the brightly coloured characters and landscapes moving about so quickly this creates a visually impressive set of scenes that manages to maintain a hyperactive energy for pretty much the entire runtime, only really slowing down during the emotional climax when such a thing would be expected to slow down.
The bulk of The Monkey King’s absolutely manic energy comes straight from the titular Monkey King who cannot slow down for even a second. Now according to that background research I mentioned earlier, this character is meant to be some kind of trickster hero and he really does give off that vibe, almost like someone loaded Bugs Bunny full of cocaine and let him run loose… the catch being, after a while it’s a little hard to keep being into that energy because there are no real peaks and valleys with the character. It’s all at 11 the entire time which can be a lot of fun but runs into a problem of being just a little bit exhausting after a while.
There’s also a slightly different problem that The Monkey King doesn’t really have much character growth, at least nothing substantial. He basically just keeps going along and getting more and more intense but never changing that underlying slightly annoying personality that powers almost all of his jokes. This isn’t always a bad thing and, for the most part, the Monkey King is a fun character to follow but it’s a little hard to love him when he doesn’t grow or change in any meaningful way, even in the last frames when you think he might’ve done some introspection on his behaviour it turns out he really hasn’t. However, this is something one thinks about when looking at it from an adult perspective, as a character in a film clearly aimed at kids he’s a genuinely hilarious creature that’s a joy to behold.
The Monkey King really does play well within the medium, the designs are delightfully over the top and push the cartoon logic to the limit (The dragon king being carried around in a giant bath because it can’t be out of the water for long is one of the funniest images in the film) and all in the service of a pretty easy to follow and well told story. There is a feeling that they are rushing some of the earlier parts of the story, the film could have maybe done with an extra 10 minutes just to flesh out the part where the Monkey King gets the staff because it feels like the film just went “Well, time to get the staff” and then did it with no build up. This happens a few more times where it’s just decided that something has to be done and we won’t build up to it or let it linger. That breakneck pace that makes the characters so energetic doesn’t work when applied to the story, at least in some small parts.
For the most part though, The Monkey King is a cute and funny film that might not be an all-time great but is generally fun enough that pretty much anyone could enjoy it. It’s got some very cool designs and visuals that make for an engaging time, a quirky main character who might be a bit hard to love at times but is certainly able to get your attention and the kind of energy that will keep most young kids pretty happy. It’s the kind of adaptation of an interesting historical text that we could use more of, keeping these classic stories alive for a brand new generation.
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