Among the millions of ticket-buyers who turned out to see “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” were two movie-goers with particularly evolved tastes.
A pair of 2-year-old chimpanzees were brought to a Myrtle Beach, S.C., multiplex to watch the film about super intelligent apes who faceoff against humans in a dystopian future — and the primates gave the flick two opposable thumbs up, according to ABC News.
Vali and Sugrive were brought by human escorts to the theater from their refuge at the Myrtle Beach Safari to watch the sequel to 2011’s “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” a movie that they had previously enjoyed on television.
The chimps handed over their tickets themselves and paid for their own popcorn and refreshments, according to the report.
They’ve also apparently developed sophisticated enough tastes to avoid the theater showing “Transformers: Age of Extinction.”
But parts of the movie proved a little scary for the chimps, not surprising because it carries a PG-13 rating. In video shown on “Good Morning America,” one of the chimps could be seen burying its head in its human companion’s chest.
“The older one, Vali, is a very bright guy, he’s (also) watched the Lord of the Rings many times, and he could follow the whole plot of the movie,” Myrtle Beach Safari director Bhagavan Antle told London’s Daily Mail.
“He loves to clap — when he likes something he claps,” said Antle. “So he clapped for the good guys, and when chimps don’t like what’s happening they hoot or bark, so when the bad guy came on he was barking.”
