Gorillas in the Mist (1988) review

American Dian Fossey (Sigourney Weaver) asks British paleoanthropologist Dr. Louis Leakey (Iain Cuthbertson) if she could work in the Congo to help protect the endangered mountain gorillas and he accepts, she hires English-speaking guide Sembagare (John Omirah Miluwi), civil war forces them to travel to Rwanda, she has a love affair with married National Geographic photographer Bob Campbell (Bryan Brown) and then becomes fanatical in fighting against the poachers.  The effects by Rick Baker and his team deserve special mention because it's difficult to tell the difference between humans-in-suits and the actual fuzzy beasts and it's easy to sympathize with Fossey's motherly instincts, but Apted is too distanced and icy for it to really seem wonderous - imagine what a true eccentric like Werner Herzog would have done with the subject.  The romantic subplot feels tacked on, and nothing is revealed about his lead's inner world: it's not exactly "normal" for a person to quit her job, dump the fiancée and go live in a jungle in Africa.