Bad Monkey Review: This Monkey Ain't Half Bad

Vince Vaughn has had a fantastic career. He's especially known for comedies like "Dodgeball," "Old School," and "Wedding Crashers," which work well for his brand of motor-mouth charm. But amongst his comedies, he's taken on more unexpected projects, like "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," "Into the Wild," and the second season of "True Detective." The wonderful "Bad Monkey" is a combination of those two genres; While it's kind of a comedy, it's kind of a drama too. And it's all about a strange case that starts when someone out fishing in the Florida Keys catches not a fish, but an arm with an erect middle finger.

Vaughn plays Andrew Yancy, who is currently suspended from the police force for driving his lover Bonnie's (Michelle Monaghan) husband's golf cart off a pier when the husband was in it. But despite the suspension, he's sent with the arm to the Miami police department where his captain hopes to pawn off the appendage. No such luck, but Yancy does meet an amazing woman named Rosa Campesino (Natalie Martinez), the morgue doctor. Despite his partner Rogelio (John Ortiz) telling him to ditch the arm, he can't bring himself to do it, and when a woman named Eve Stripling (Meredith Hagner) comes in looking for her missing husband, it leads directly back to the arm.

At the same time, Neville Stafford (Ronald Peet) is living a simple life in the Bahamas. He is also the owner of the title character, Driggs (Crystal the Monkey), who despite the title's billing isn't too bad of a monkey. But developers have bought his land from his sister, and one day Neville returns home to find it destroyed. One of his friends suggests going to the Dragon Queen (Jodie Turner-Smith) — someone who makes her living in magic — for a curse, and Neville decides to take his advice.

While these two stories seem like they're disconnected, they come together quickly. Soon, Yancy, Neville, and a lot of other people are wrapped up in this nefarious scenario, including the mysterious developer Christopher (Rob Delaney), his heavy Egg (David St. Louis), and the Dragon Queen's strange grandmother Yaya (L. Scott Caldwell). And for a little extra attitude, the whole thing is narrated by Tom Nowicki, here known as Captain Fitzpatrick, the man who ran the fishing boat that originally found the arm.

Based on Carl Hiaasen's best-selling novel of the same name, "Bad Monkey" is a winner. The series is executive produced by its showrunner Bill Lawrence who has feel-good shows like "Scrubs" and "Ted Lasso" under his belt, but who has also ushered more emotionally complex stories to the screen. This is one of the latter.

While the actual monkey on screen may not be so bad, there are some people in this series that do horrible things — and some that could be accused of being monkeys on strings, driven by their impulses only to discover way too late that they did things the wrong way. But while their characters may have gone bad, all the actors are very good. Vince Vaughn plays his typical role, a frequently glib man who has diarrhea of the mouth, but he does it so well, it's hard to find something to complain about. Also it may just be me, but I love the fact that he cares about animals, emphasizing several times that the lights are red instead of white or yellow because of baby turtles and championing the local deer.

The people around him are all fantastic too. While I could cite any of them, I'll name only one: Jodie Turner-Smith is great as the Dragon Queen. Not only does she do a wonderful job nailing the mysterious, magical character, she's fantastic at getting to the nuances of her, especially when she falls from grace and must find her way back.

The show also does an excellent job of bringing two cultures together. While the Florida Keys and the Bahamas are not very far from one another, when American tourists go to the Bahamas, the locals are usually kept at arms' length. But in this show, the locals of both places come together to form a good guys team and a bad guys team. While the bad guys pay the people in the Bahamas for their services and therefore seem to feel they've earned the right to treat them poorly, the good guys are all on the same page, and their camaraderie is touching.

Furthermore, the series' production designers, Daniel A. Davila and Tim Galvin, are great at evoking a sense of place. While the homes in the Florida Keys have backyards that are lush and expansive, the money pit that a realtor (Alex Moffat) has built next to Yancy's home tells a different story about conspicuous consumption and what some are willing to do to get wealthy people to buy. The downtown area is filled with tourist traps and restaurants that have a coastal feel but in a charming sort of way. On the other hand, the Bahamas island of Andros has a different vibe. It's barely populated, the houses are run-down and ramshackle, and sand is practically everywhere.

My only real complaint about "Bad Monkey" is that they could have spent less time on some side plots. For example, while Michelle Monaghan's character is integral to the main story, when her plotline isn't connected to it, we don't need to follow each and every nuance of what she does so closely. In fact, very little gets lost here, even when it's not particularly relevant to the plot — except for the mysterious reason behind the disembodied hand's upward middle finger. While it's probably due to rigor mortis, as the coroner says, it would still be nice if there was some clarity.

Still, "Bad Monkey," despite the iffy title, is quite good. While it's a little bit of a throwback to the '90s when shows overflowing with characters that eventually all come together were more prominent, it's also got a hip, modern tone. Do yourself a favor and check it out.

The first two episodes of "Bad Monkey" hit Apple TV+ on August 14, with a new episode premiering each Wednesday after that.