Im Reich der Affen

Monkey Kingdom

The best thing about being a part of an ape empire is that you can rest assure that your children will never have lice for long.

In fact, grooming one another is only one of the odd practices featured in this simian documentary.

When female toque macaque Maya migrates to the remains of an antediluvian jungle temple in Sri Lanka called Castle Rock, she learns quickly that the roost is ruled over by alpha macaque Raja and three sister monkeys.

Banished to the bottom of the food chain, Maya must now struggle to feed her newborn Kip, whose father Kumar has since flown the coop.

Painstakingly captured on-camera by Disneynature's intrepid film crew and wittily narrated by Tina Fey, Monkey Kingdom is a comical and captivating look at the social disorder of our distant cousins.

In fact, any more poop flinging and this could pass as a reality TV show.

Green Light

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"Monkey Kingdom" is a wildlife documentary done in the trademarked Disney style - that is, to say, with lots of family-friendly positiveness and unyielding good cheer.

The movie takes us deep into the jungles of Sri Lanka, where a hierarchical society of toque macaque monkeys make their home in the shadow of a long-abandoned ancient city. The main focus is on one female monkey "named" Maya, a low-born member of the community who is consigned to a lifetime of serving those born into the higher strata (the caste system here makes India look like a model of egalitarianism and social mobility in comparison).

"Monkey Kingdom" is obviously aimed at a younger audience, which explains, but doesn't quite excuse, its tendency to talk down to its audience, speaking of the animals' thoughts and feelings in the most blatantly anthropomorphic of terms. It's probably not helped by the jejune Mark Linfield narration (spoken by Tina Fey), which can't resist interjecting corny asides at every opportunity. And a lot of it sure feels staged, especially a trip to a local city and a carefully choreographed raid on a birthday party (how DO they get their cameras in all those different places? Stick around for the closing credits to get an inkling of how it's done).

On the plus side, the high-definition photography is drop-dead gorgeous, and the glimpses the movie provides into monkey sociology - not too far removed from human sociology, I must confess - is often fascinating to observe. Though, I must admit, I frequently found myself wishing the cameras would turn away from the monkeys to explore the nearby ruins - and the history behind them - instead.

Primates are very familiar in nature documentaries. Not that that matters, as there is often a chance to see rarely seen species mixed in with those that most people know and see them doing skills one would never think they'd be capable of. Personally like primates and many types of monkeys a good deal, and have learnt something different about them every time going to my local zoo. It seemed a perfect group for DisneyNature to cover, having seen how children react whenever they see a monkey (captivated).

2015's 'Monkey Kingdom' is another solid DisneyNature documentary, but it is a long way from being one of the best ones. It's better than 'Elephant', with some of the worst narration for any DisneyNature documentary, and 'Born in China', that looked amazing but had really bad narration and a confused target audience. At the same time, 'African Cats' and from memory 'The Crimson Wing' for example were better. 'Monkey Kingdom' is definitely worth seeing for anybody that loves monkeys.

'Monkey Kingdom', like with all the DisneyNature documentaries, looks absolutely wonderful. Especially the photography, which in a very cinematic-like way stunningly captures the vibrant wonder of the scenery. The photography is also clearly in love with the animals without being self-indulgent, managing to capture vividly behaviours and skills one doesn't always see. The editing doesn't come over as too gimmicky or too chaotic.

The monkeys themselves are an absolute joy, so compellingly real in personality and both full of life and easy to root for. Enough of 'Monkey Kingdom' entertains, more the behaviour of the monkeys rather than the narration, and while there is not an awful lot that illuminates or is innovative it is educational. Much of it is incredibly charming and warms the heart, as well as moves. It is not as much of a tonal muddle as 'Born in China', there aren't scenes that are too disturbing and there is nowhere near as much that insults the intelligence. Tina Fey left me a bit mixed, she has the right kind of voice for the narrator role and has some sincerity.

Her "jokey" attempts at humour are less successful, personally like others here found it very corny, quite contrived and at times misplaced. The writing for the narration generally could have been a lot better and more focused, with more facts and less of a "trying too hard to appeal to younger viewers" vibe. Some of the pacing could have been tighter, some dull stretches here and there.

Another aspect that doesn't come over well is the music, which is far too loud and in terms of musical styles it really does not fit at all the tone or the imagery. Either being too chirpy or too playful and the pop songs really takes out of the setting.

Concluding, a good documentary but not a great one. 7/10

Life can be tough if you weren't born to privilege. You know and understand your place in society, but wish it were higher. You try in vain to be accepted by your betters. You see no way to improve your lot in life and all you can do is watch others enjoy the fruits of their vaunted positions, and serve them. Sufficient food and shelter are hard to come by, but you make the best of the situation. You're disregarded and sometimes outright disrespected. You might not even be free to enjoy the company and comfort of the life partner of your choice. If you become a single parent, you may find yourself even more alone than when you just had yourself to be concerned with. And this whole time, you also have to worry about those outside your society taking your food, your home, your family, even your life, knowing that your only defense is those above you who treat you with such disdain. Yes, it can be really tough being a monkey in the jungles of Sri Lanka.

"Monkey Kingdom" (G, 1:20) is the eighth feature film from Disneynature and tells the story of Maya, a female toque macaque (pronounced "muh-KAK") who finds herself in the exact situation described above. She was born at the bottom of her group's social ladder. She has to watch her fellows in the tree branches above her eat fruits and flowers, while she is forced to scavenge what she can, including the scraps which fall to the jungle floor. She watches the other monkeys play in the tower of boulders called "Castle Rock", knowing that trying to interact with them would lead to an attack by her own kind. When it rains and the higher-born use Castle Rock for shelter, Maya and the other societal cellar dwellers are literally left out in the cold. When a male macaque who has struck out on his own shows an interest in Maya, he is chased off by the others. Maya is left alone and pregnant, with no choice but to fend for herself and her little boy, Kip.

This being the jungle, there's even more for Maya and her fellow macaques to worry about besides the social order in their kingdom. First off, they have their natural predators to contend with. Steering clear of leopards and seven foot long monitor lizards will always be a priority, as will the search for food. Different seasons yield different edibles in varying amounts. Sometimes the monkeys have to get creative in their search for food, and sometimes (equally creatively), they just steal it from a nearby village. I suppose regular human people could be dangerous to encounter, but we see none of that here. In fact, we see the monkeys interact very amusingly with a variety of animals that are neither predator nor prey, to include an annoyed mongoose, some cute bear cubs and even an easy-going dog. Then again, there's also the danger of losing out on more than some nuts and berries. Castle Rock is prime jungle real estate and could be seen as very tempting by, say, a rival gang of macaques.

I had no idea that monkeys had such a strict social order. And that's not all that surprised me. I don't want to spoil anything by describing some of the other things I saw monkeys do in this movie, because, unless you're a monkologist (yeah, I just made that up), you're likely to be surprised as well. But there's a lot more to this movie than simply an educational journey through the wilds of an island nation in the Indian Ocean. The movie features magnificent cinematography and editing, along with Tina Fey perfectly narrating a script that is accessible, interesting, clever and fun. Technically, this is a documentary, but it feels much more like a well-planned story, only you can't plan this stuff. There's real drama here, situations to which most people can relate and even a touch of a Disney princess story.

"Monkey Kingdom" is definitely not your grandparents' nature program. This movie is beautiful, thrilling, fun and educational in a way that you'll thoroughly enjoy. I had the pleasure of seeing this movie with three generations of a family with whom I am very close. The youngest member is three years old and was experiencing her very first movie in a theater. This child, who is normally very… energetic (choosing my words carefully because my friends will be reading this review), was as happy and calm as I've ever seen her (awake) and, for much of the movie, she was rapt, as was her mother and grandmother, and me. Whether you're 3, 23, 43 or 93, I can hardly imagine anyone of any age not enjoying this wonderful movie. "A"

I'm not really into Disney nature documentaries. I've seen a few they did in the 1960s on The Wonderful World of Disney, but the new ones they put out don't last in the theaters long enough for me to catch (Although I think I saw the one about the chimpanzees, and the one about elephants)

This one is a lot different from the old docs 50 years ago. It's very playful with the narrative and tells a more linear story voiced by Tiny Fey. What's most interesting about this is how the plot follows the Disney formula of a true underdog coming up. They must have had to do a lot of research and follow these monkeys for a long period of time to pull that off.

The story is about a single mother named Mya who's on the very bottom of the social status and must beat the odds in order to provide a better life for her son, kip.

It was so fascinating to see how the Monkey kingdom mimics the kingdom of man. Whenever someone tries to convince me that we are better than other animals (cause sometimes man forgets that's what we are). I'll have this movie to use as an example of how that's not accurate.

I went into this film not thinking much of anything but killing time, but it was not a waste of time. It was great!