`MIGHTY JOE' FIERCELY YOUNG AT HEART.

Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Critic

This pleasant, undemanding remake of ``Mighty Joe Young'' plays like ``Free Willy'' with fur.

The new version of the 1949 kiddie favorite gives the giant-ape-on-the-loose-in-L.A. story line an eco-conscious gloss. This time, the 15-foot gorilla isn't shipped over from his African homeland to headline a cheap vaudeville show; he's shipped over to be the star attraction at a nature conservancy park. It's not irresponsible drunks but evil poachers (Rade Sherbedgia - who used to call himself Serbedzija - and Peter Firth) who get Big Joe all riled-up and loose on Hollywood Boulevard this time around.

Bill Paxton is the compassionate white hunter/zoologist and Charlize Theron is the beautiful white jungle girl who are Joe's best friends. She and Joe both lost their mothers when they were little primates - courtesy of those same evil poachers, in a sequence that owes a lot to Spielberg's ``The Lost World'' - and their bond, as fundamentally hokey as it may be, is genuinely touching.

Joe himself is a pretty cuddly creation. Slicker than the stop-motion puppet created in 1949 by Willis O'Brien and Ray Harryhausen (the latter, along with original ``Joe'' heroine Terry Moore, makes a nice little cameo appearance in the new movie), the new 2,000-pound gorilla is a state-of-the-art creation. Designed by five-time Oscar winner Rick Baker, who has excelled at the hairy thing in the likes of ``Greystoke'' and ``Gorillas in the Mist,'' the new Joe is a seamlessly expressive blend of animatronics, computer graphics and guys in monkey suits.

Still, as in the first film, it's impossible to believe that this lovable lumberer actually frightens the citizens of Los Angeles while he avoids a small army of cops. Unlike O'Brien's more indelible creation King Kong, Joe has never generated the tragedy and terror that his big brother unleashed. He still doesn't.

The director is Ron Underwood, who made ``City Slickers.'' He does his best to prevent this thoroughly Disneyfied remake from seeming more silly than it is. Of course, it wouldn't be ``Mighty Joe Young'' if it wasn't goofy, so it's just as well that Underwood didn't succeed.

Kids should be enchanted and amused, and that's all this junior varsity film fable should ever aspire to anyway.

The facts

The film: ``Mighty Joe Young'' (PG; violence, language).

The stars: Charlize Theron, Bill Paxton, Rade Sherbedgia, David Paymer, Regina King.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Ron Underwood. Written by Mark Rosenthal and Lawrence Konner, based on the film written by Ruth Rose and Merian C. Cooper. Produced by Ted Hartley and Tom Jacobson. Released by Walt Disney Pictures.

Running time: One hour, 55 minutes.

Playing: Citywide.

Our rating: two and one half stars.

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Photo

PHOTO Charlize Theron plays a jungle girl and Bill Paxton a zoologist who befriend Joe the ape in Disney's ``Mighty Joe Young.''