Jseneff1 My 5 year old picked this movie as our Friday night family movie. It seemed fun and cute! Boy was I wrong! The only thing funny and cute about this movie is the Chimps. About 5 minutes in you think this lady is Deranged!!!! And then there is a whole lip stick scene that just seems uncomfortable! I was afraid I was going to have to make a fast jump on the remote!And then when you finally think she may have gotten her stuff together you make the mistake of looking up the true story of this lady and realize she is the complete opposite of an activist for animals!!!!Don't watch this movie!!!

lmsnowhte Does anyone remember the name of a movie made around this same time which starred the sign language gorilla and young teenage boy who kidnaps him from the lab his mother is working at and the adventure ensues? Thank you for your help!!!! I would like to try and find this movie on DVD if it exists. It was kind-of a cute comedy-family movie as I remember and the teenage boy drives him I think to Canada after dressing him up in a trench coat and hat and stealing him in a van and then taking him to a min-mart type place for food. Does this sound familiar to anyone? I could really use your help as the name escapes me now. I do remember renting it on VHS though around 1994-1997. Somewhere around that time frame. I think it was better than Buddy as a movie.

moonspinner55 Curiously, it is Rene Russo's eyes and mouth--not Buddy the Gorilla's-- that emerge as the focal point of "Buddy", a Jim Henson Pictures production through Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope. Somehow, countless close-ups of Russo's face slipped passed in the post-production stages, and she literally fills the screen so many times the poor apes are upstaged. Unintentionally funny true story adapted from Gertrude "Trudy" Davies Lint's memoirs about a wealthy doctor's wife who turns their mansion into a menagerie for pets and wild-life. The movie goes beyond good intentions...it positively drips with earnest sincerity. The movie never sparkles with the kind of "family film" magic that it needed, and before too long both the people and the animals seem distinctly programmed (nothing here feels real). About ten minutes in, two chimpanzees are goofing around in Russo's kitchen and start throwing a butcher's knife back and forth (it misses Alan Cumming's head by inches); yet, no eyebrows are raised because it's all in a day's fun. Still, when full-grown gorilla Buddy gets crazy during a thunderstorm, the cops are called--and everyone stares at Buddy through the window while he busts up the living room furniture. The furniture should be the least of anyone's worries in this flabbergasting, do-gooder failure. But, at least we know Russo was in good hands: whenever director Caroline Thompson needs a good pick-up shot, she gives unstartled Rene another extreme close-up. I wonder what the lipstick budget was on this picture? ** from ****

moviewavs I was waiting for it to be over. There were a few scenes that evoked emotion but soon fell flat. It had a few moments that were a little funny. That, that's all I have to say about that.