MOVIE REVIEW : ‘LINK’S’ LOCKE HAS STAR QUALITY

The premise of “Link” (citywide)--a beleaguered “lady in distress,” trapped in a Scottish estate with a crazed chimpanzee--hardly seems ripe stuff for entertainment. And the movie was released without press screenings, usually a bad sign.

Yet, despite predictability and flaws, “Link” is surprisingly good. It’s a tight, involving, “Beauty and the Beast” thriller, with more humor and intelligence than you’d guess. More importantly, it introduces Locke, a remarkable chimpanzee, in the title role, who makes “Down and Out in Beverly Hills’ ” Mike the dog look overrated and flashy.

Locke has definite star quality. At our showing the audience was yelling “Yo, Link!” with the lustiness you usually hear at Clint Eastwood movies. If that sounds perverse--while they cheered, Link was killing four humans and a dog and chasing a fetching young heroine (Elisabeth Shue of “The Karate Kid”) all over hither and yon--be advised that this is probably a more sympathetic simian villain than King Kong himself. (When you see five credits for “animatronics” experts, you get twinges. Were parts of this amazing performance faked?)

Link is the head ape and major domo of the glib, reckless primate researcher Dr. Steven Phillip (Terence Stamp--oozing cool, manipulative narcissism), and, initially, the friend of Dr. Phillip’s naive but resourceful young assistant, Jane Chase (Shue). When we first see him, shambling along in the halls of Phillip’s seaside laboratory-estate, he cuts a poignant figure. He’s wearing a dusty old butler’s outfit, his outlandishly long arms sweeping the floor, yet gently reaching out to guide his young guest, his face serene, grave, watchful and slightly melancholy--lighting up only when he indulges in his one fierce pleasure, a good cigar.

And when Link runs amok, it’s with good reason: Phillip, a callous sadist, has betrayed him by planning to sell him off and kill him. That’s why you stay sympathetic through all his rages, as he tears people’s arms off and finally--seemingly against his will--menaces Jane. It’s simple survival: He has no choice. That he seems so oddly civilized--so wedded to the vest and jacket he resolutely strips off--makes his revolt even more saddening.

You’d have liked “Link” (MPAA-rated: R) to have a less programmed, fatalistic ending. Though Franklin performs real acrobatics with his camera, the lighting often seems overly fuzzy and murky. Actress Shue often doesn’t seem frightened enough.

Yet the movie pleases because of Stamp, its quirky little gags and because of Locke. Perhaps only Franklin--aided by animal expert Ray Berwick and handler Joe McCarter--could get this rich a performance from him. His role was obviously constructed out of small pieces, just as some human actors’ are. But, as he lights his cigar in the fiery tumult, he’s as dynamic as Jimmy Cagney yelling “Top of the world, Ma!” in “White Heat”--the catharsis of doomed rebellion pushed to the limit. Yo, Link!