King Kong the movie, like its namesake, is a fast moving, hard-hitting behemoth with a big heart. Between this and his monumental Lord of the Rings series, Peter Jackson has officially unseated Steven Spielberg as film�s foremost creator of big-budget wonders that are actually wonderful.
Too much hollow Hollywood fare these days has a soulless sheen, with one-dimensional characters that are imagined first as plastic action figures and then made to fit paint-by-numbers storylines. King Kong is a marvel, the magnificent dream of a nine-year old boy realized with the intelligence, sincerity, and passion of Moviedom�s currently most sophisticated filmmaking team: Jackson at the helm, co-writing with Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, aided and abetted by that mad Kiwi genius, Richard Taylor, and his WETA accomplices.
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Peter Jackson has officially unseated Steven Spielberg as film�s foremost creator of big-budget wonders...
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Jackson�s update is twice as long as the original 1933 Kong, but the story has the same essential beats. He builds tension by frontloading the first act�set in a luscious fantasy of Great Depression New York�with character-driven exposition. A less confident director would have dived into the Skull Island action ASAP, but Jackson�s nothing if not confident right now, and nothing if not smart. He takes his time. He gives us Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts), a struggling vaudeville actress reduced to stealing an apple from a sidewalk vendor. Her beauty and pathos catch the attention of Carl Denham (Jack Black), a movie producer best described (somewhat rhetorically) as ambitious, manipulative, and on morally shaky ground. Denham�s star is dimming, his financial backers are balking, and he�s in desperate need of a leading actress for his last stab at success: an adventure movie filmed on location at a mysterious, forebodingly named location: Skull Island.
In a charismatic, unexpected performance, Black gives Denham Orson Wellesian bluster; he�s a mad manic filmmaker with more vision than talent (true of Denham, not Welles). With the boys-in-blue hot on his heels, Denham shanghais soulful playwright, Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody, brooding), as his hired-hand screenwriter. Driscoll is an intellectual, a voice of the people, but some part of him seems primed for a bit of rollicking adventure. And so a crew of colorful misfits takes off on the steamer, Venture, headed for an uncharted island, straight into the Heart of Darkness.
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Jackson reinterprets the creepy sexual overtones of Kong�s devotion in the 1933 movie into something more chaste...
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After the exposition-heavy first hour, the movie shifts into high action gear on Skull Island. Skull Island is the land that Time forgot, a primordial jungle teeming with all sorts of spine-tingling life: vicious natives, rapacious dinosaurs, unspeakable sorts of creepy-crawlies, and a mighty big gorilla. Jackson, a true maestro, orchestrates one jaw-dropping sequence after another, pushing the limits of film technology and the PG-13 rating (think before taking the youngsters to this movie�I was squirming in my seat, half-covering my eyes at certain points).
The first hour spent with the characters pays off big-time in the second act: we care about what happens to Ann, Jack, the Venture crew, and even devious Denham. We know how they�ll react, though some surprise us. When Ann is captured by natives in need of their own lead actress�a luscious blonde sacrifice to the giant creature of the jungle�The Venture crew and the movie crew, with Denham toting tripod and camera, set out on a rescue mission.
Needless to say, in the dangerous and unpredictable heart of Skull Island, supporting characters are dispatched in a variety of marvelously entertaining ways (special points to Lumpy, the cook, played with mad glee by double-booked Andy Serkis). There�s a brontosaurus stampede, a hair-raising episode on a highly unstable log, and a long drop into a cavern filled with some seriously stomach-churning insects and arachnids�not for the faint of heart.
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The climax is a violent showdown between Mystery and Machinery.
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I recalled, at this point, Jackson�s early career as shlocky Z-movie director, the gross-out auteur behind such anti-classics as Bad Taste and Meet the Feebles. There�s a lot of more of that lowbrow sensibility on display here than that of the guy who cradled the golden man at the 2003 Oscars. Skull Island is Jackson�s Neverland, his gigantic movie playground. He brings all his giddy enthusiasm and technical mastery to bear on brash, broad-stroke storytelling. It�s great stuff: epic pulp, and a heart-racing paean to the glory days of adventure movie serials. I felt exhausted and exhilarated.
The action stuff wouldn�t be nearly as fun if the characters weren�t compelling. Though Jack, the writer, and Ann, the actress, share some meaningful glances on the Venture and a perfunctory liplock, the movie�s key relationship is the one that develops between Ann and Kong. Jackson, in a strategic move that surprised many, revealed Kong in all his simian glory in both the trailers and posters leading up to the movie�s release. Why not leave Kong a surprise? Not to do that was canny on Jackson�s part, because the real surprise about Kong isn�t how cool he looks (though he certainly does look cool); the surprise is how well he acts.
There is a real character here. Kong is �played� by Andy Serkis, the same actor who infused Gollum with fascinating pathos and life-likeness in the LoTR movies. He brings the same qualities to Kong. He never steps over the fine line between the credible and the schmaltzy. This Kong is an ape, a king of the jungle�he�s not human. He doesn�t need to be. He�s a battle-scarred survivor, the last of his kind, a ferocious warrior who is touched by Ann�s quirky originality. Jackson reinterprets the creepy sexual overtones of Kong�s devotion in the 1933 movie into something more chaste here. Ann entertains Kong and he protects her. They�re both outsiders, in their way, and Kong develops an obsession with keeping Ann safe.
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'Beauty will save the world.' How many Hollywood flicks are willing to make that claim nowadays?
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But while Kong may be king of the jungle, he�s vulnerable in the jungle of Manhattan. In the metallic world of skyscrapers, motor vehicles, and tram lines, the climax is a violent showdown between Nature and Industry�or Mystery and Machinery. It�s a testament to Jackson�s storytelling skills that he�s just as invested in the quiet, tender moments as he is in the big-bang action sequences. A lovely bit between Ann and Kong on Central Park�s skating rink is a brief flush of happiness for the King before the mayhem. The tear-jerking ending is well-earned.
We all know the ending (Big Ape in the Big Apple atop the Empire State Building), but Jackson�s got some tricks up his sleeve. Recall that Return of the King did not climax with the earth-shaking Battle of Pelennor Fields, but rather with two hobbits and a slimy creature wrestling over a ring. Jackson is a master of intimate human drama against an epic backdrop, and the poignancy and pathos of the final sequence in Kong could now be called �trademark� Jackson.
Like Frodo, CGI Kong is a compelling a character because he�s spurred by something outside himself. Ann is a catalyst for self-sacrifice. Denham intones, ��Twas Beauty killed the Beast,� but Beauty is the Beast�s salvation. Denham kills Kong, whereas Beauty, Ann, gives Kong a reason to live. Which is better, to die for Love and Beauty, or live alone and unloved as King of the Jungle? To quote Dostoevsky, �Beauty will save the world.� How many Hollywood flicks are willing to make that claim nowadays?
In the end, Jackson�s re-envisioning of the 1933 movie that inspired him to make movies is a love letter to cinema. And like a lot of love letters its reckless gushiness compensates for the occasional grammatical error or misspelled word. Some of the special effects are cheesy, subplots trail off unresolved, and characters remain a tad two-dimensional (I, for one, would like to have seen Driscoll use his writer�s brains a bit more). Yet Kong is a movie so generous, so overflowing with great ideas and visionary imagination, that to fault it for not being word-perfect is like admonishing Mozart for writing an opera with �too many notes.� There�s enough passion, originality, and artistic ingenuity in this extravaganza to rival 2005�s quirkiest indie or classiest Oscar bait. I bow to this King.