‘The Monkey King’ Review: Wrenching the Zen of the Gods

How unfastened is Anthony Stacchi’s brash retelling of the adventures of Sun Wukong, the famed Monkey King from the Sixteenth-century Chinese novel “Journey to the West”? I’ll provide you with an instance: The monkey’s highly effective workers, a weapon referred to as the Ruyi Jingu Bang, has, via the years, been known as the Compliant Golden-Hooped Rod and the As-You-Will-Gold-Banded Cudgel. Here, it’s referred to as Stickipoo — and if its robotic squawks and light-saber glow seem on mortgage from George Lucas, that’s solely honest. “Star Wars” borrowed the Force from Daoism; now, this cacophonous children’ cartoon asserts its lead as a foundational superhero.

We’re quickly satisfied. In the opening stretch, the Monkey King (Jimmy O. Yang) hatches from a rock, glares his pink laser eyes on the heavens, and declares that he’ll command the gods’ consideration by defeating 100 baddies — which he does, to the wail of a jokey heavy metallic soundtrack. (“Who has demons screaming when he knocks on their door? Monkey King!” the lyrics screech.) Pompous, status-seeking and dismissive of these he deems inferior — i.e., everybody — the braggart is fated to be taught endurance by the hands of Buddha (BD Wong), a titanic determine lit to glow from inside, like a salt lamp. But this twitchy flick doesn’t have a lot time for inside peace. There are too many rivals to mock, punch and threaten to urinate on (a taunt that happens within the unique textual content).

The script by Ron J. Friedman, Stephen Bencich and Rita Hsiao throws each potential joke on the viewers. Midway via a battle in Hell — sure, Hell — its ruler, Yama (Andrew Kishino), even pauses to face our course and paint his stamp of doom on the display screen. The visuals are so frenetic that they’ll appear inconsiderate. One wants Zen-like focus to understand the animators’ skillful use of angles and house. The uncommon moments through which a picture pauses to catch its breath will be beautiful, corresponding to a shot of an countless expanse of flaming lanterns dangling over numerous white ghosts — how the artist Yayoi Kusama might need designed the afterlife.

There’s sufficient gags {that a} dozen land. (I chuckled when a shortsighted sage, voiced by James Sie, tries to shoo off the rebellious monkey by dramatically intoning, “Coconut him.”) As for the immortals, half communicate like youngsters huffing paint behind the mall, and all however Buddha are egomaniacs sustaining a cosmic hierarchy the place the gods enjoyment of 10-foot-tall egg tart sculptures of themselves whereas earthlings are humbled into insignificance. Stacchi’s tackle the divine is catty, teetering on camp — it virtually appears impressed by the drag star Divine, significantly when the Dragon King (Bowen Yang) saunters out of his bathtub palanquin moistening his fur so his pores and skin doesn’t flake.

The one exception is a brand new character: a village woman named Lin (Jolie Hoang-Rappaport), who’s the one wise determine within the movie. If this empathetic heroine was the lead in every other film, I’d discover her a bit too bland. Here, she cuts properly via the noise.

The Monkey King
Rated PG. Running time: 1 hour 32 minutes. Watch on Netflix.