The last popular baseball movie of note might’ve been Moneyball (because, you know, Brad Pitt), but South Korea is now adding their own spin of the baseball epic: The action-comedy Mr Go. Set in Sichuan and South Korea, Mr Go tells the story of the baseball-playing gorilla, Ling Ling. His owner Wei Wei (CJ7’s Xu Jiao) gets saddled with debt after their circus gets destroyed during the Sichuan earthquake, but instead of having to sell Ling Ling to loansharks, agent Sung Chung-Su (Song Dong-Il) saves the day by signing Ling Ling for the Korean baseball league and renames him Mr Go. Being a gorilla movie, the movie does one of the best animated apes on film since Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes. The CGI in the show is almost seamless, and the actors do a commendable job acting to the non-existent gorilla in the room. From the baseball stunts to his home life, Mr Go feels like how you’d expect a gorilla to behave, and credit goes to the director for not indulging in too much monkey business. Despite his obvious advantages, Mr Go’s baseball career isn’t so smooth. A greedy agent, loansharks, baseball-mad Japanese conglomerates, rival teams who twist rules, injuries and a rival gorilla (Zeroz) who pitches a mean fastball all become the proverbial monkey on Mr Go’s back. A lot that stands in the way of Wei Wei’s quest to save her circus, and it all adds up to an over two-hour-long movie that gets draggy and melodramatic, but once Mr Go steps up to the plate, all that is quickly forgotten. While a lot of the plot is laughable, the movie knows it’s about a gorilla playing baseball and never takes itself too seriously, which means the more incredulous moments are fun than groan-worthy. More “monkey ball” than Moneyball, Mr Go still has just enough heart it in to make it more than your usual animated ape escapade.

(PG, 130 mins)