A space capsule lands in the New Mexico desert and Dr. Linda Murphy (Arianna Scott) identifies it as a secret US-Soviet deep space probe that was launched years ago: it was a joint mission to try and make alien contact.

Now this capsule has landed back on Earth it is discovered that the chimp inside it is still alive after all these years… and now it is starting to grow in size! Alien green fluid that causes the ape to enlarge is then ingested by a local gila monster and it too begins to grow. Linda, along with her estranged father Noah and Russian astrophysicist Eva Kuleshov (Katie Sereika), find out that a spaceship from the Andromeda Galaxy is controlling the creatures and, presumably, wants to cause a collapse in the US government by sending the monsters to wreck havoc in Washington.

Abraham, the giant-size chimpanzee, becomes free of all alien control and finally fights the lizard monster in Washington and, after it wins the fight, the authorities decide not to kill the ape, allowing it to live in a base outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico.

APE VS MONSTER is a mockbuster from The Asylum, obviously intended to cash-in on the release of GODZILLA VS KONG.

The special effects are not totally bad for a release from The Asylum, which isn’t saying much, that must be admitted! The lizard monster and the spaceship are acceptably rendered, though Abraham the huge chimp looks, for the most part, rather poor.

For some reason Abraham just grows larger but still looks like a chimp, but the gila monster evolves into a kind of bipedal dino-monster when it enlarges, even though characters continue to refer to it just as a gila monster.

The biggest let-down with the movie is the fact that there’s very little interaction between the monsters, despite the title, with a very brief battle between the creatures occurring at the very end of the movie.

Eric Roberts looks pretty careworn as National Security Advisor Ethan Marcos and he has to deal with some pretty clunky dialogue, much of the movie’s running time is padded out with talky scenes, and disappointment cannot really be avoided, thanks to the fact there are not that many monster scenes interspersed throughout the movie.

So, pretty much what you’d expect from a film made by The Asylum. If you like these cheesy SyFy Channel-type mockbusters, this is definitely the movie for you.