Popular reviews

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  Review by Erin 🍺 ★★★

  Shit. I fell in shit. 

  Oh y’all I have been WAITING for this one I’m so stoked! This was the first movie I ever saw Julie Harris in when I was a wee lass before my full blown obsession with her and while her time was short in this the impact was MASSIVE. I remember this really affecting my little 7 year old, animal lover self. This is the first time I’m rewatching this since then and it’s not affecting me as much this time probably bc I understand the politics of everything going on better now that I’m older. Animal conservation is so incredibly fucking important though and we as the human species need to learn how to better…

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  Review by Jordan Horowitz ★★★★

  Had absolutely no idea this one would be so moving and powerful and scary and well shot and directed. And Rick Bakers work here is sensational. So good.

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  Review by Luke Kane ★★★½

  A violent campaign for peace

  Dian Fossey's extreme approach to conservationism was a little nutty, but that doesn't mean she was wrong.

  There are still many unknowns about her bizarre and extraordinary life, but this much is clear: she was not a slack-jawed activist. She once described the difference between 'active' and 'theoretical' conservationism, and was openly critical of the latter. As a scientist she lacked objectivity, but her scientific pursuits merely provided the means by which she chose to live her life - that is, amongst a band of wild gorillas in a remote region of a Rwandan rainforest. It was a life she sustained for eighteen years.

  Fossey relied on instinct to gain the gorillas' acceptance, mimicking their…

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  Review by Speeg ★★★½ 2

  A great looking cinematic presentation, about as impressive as anything visually I’d seen made in 2022. Each image early on in the wild is like a postcard. I’d been eyeing the Blu-ray but was glad to see this pop up on HBOMax.

  The film does at times struggle to sustain its 2 hour plus run time but not for the reasons you’d think. It’s not the monotony of nature scenes that’s responsible but more the manufactured drama where it wasn’t always needed. Sigourney Weaver is good as Fossey, but she doesn’t quite capture the eccentric nature it would require for this undertaking, and the shoehorned in love story is awkward at best. 

  Still, she excels in depicting a woman’s singular…

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  Review by dirtylaundri ★★★

  Basically all non-ape scenes are dull and the politics are at least somewhat dubious... but if Sigourney Weaver laying her head down on moss and stretching out her hand, in order to make contact with a gorilla isn't cinema, I don't know what is.

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  Review by alan ★★★★

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  oh to be that baby gorilla and being cared by sigourney weaver

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  Review by Danny B ★★★

  (DVD)

  Matt's 2022 Film Challenge:
  Film #42. Gorillas in the Mist (1988)

  "Dian Fossey, a scientist, visits Africa to study the vanishing mountain gorillas. Later, she fights to protect them from poachers in Rwanda."

  This hit a lot of easy sweet spots for me as a lover of all apes, big or small. I find them to be amazing creatures that are easy to love and endlessly fascinating to watch do their thing. Gorillas in the Mist does perfectly capture that feeling of wonder and intrigue these animals invoke, but the film itself, while emotionally involving does feel a bit hollow and never quite gets under the skin of what made Dian Fossey the person she ended up being.

  This…

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  Review by robbie ★★★

  those gorillas sure were in the mist

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  Review by Josh Ohea ★★★ 2

  Really sad story. The film could have been better but I enjoyed it.

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  Review by Karl ★★★½

  GET OFF MY MOUNTAIN! 
  Yells the white lady in Rwanda. 

  Gorillas in the Mist tells the story of Dian Fossey’s determination to help the Gorillas in Africa avoid extinction mainly as the result of poachers. Sigourney Weaver gives a fierce performance and was deservedly nominated for an Oscar. The film itself is rather basic, but Weaver makes it worth your while.

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  Review by Samu Haines ★★★★★

  Eighties excellence? Perhaps graded on a curve, but idgaf. One of the first *good* biopics willing to explore the flaws of its female subject, rather than martyr and praise them. Fossey's idealistic beginning and descent into terrorism bookend her impassioned conservation efforts. Sigourney elevates the script into something praise-worthy and the eighties synth-score is an iconic coupling to the sharp cinematography and editing.

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  Review by nahtower ★★½ 10

  Pretty terribly written and almost ineptly directed. But the animals are amazing (except for the baby gorilla animatronics which are, well, obvious animatronics). This is one of those movies I saw a thousand times as a kid. Unsurprisingly, I'd forgotten almost all the human elements - half because kids like animals more than people and half because the human element of this movie is pretty bland pap. "Digit" remains compelling even now that I'm not 5 years old anymore. And despite all its failures, this movie succeeds, at least for me, because it fulfills the vicarious dream of disappearing into nature and being wholly accepted by it. As a kid, I thought I wanted to go to Alaska to "study"…