King Kong - Fargus
Even those among us who've never seen the original King Kong know the story. Truth be told, the story's not that hard to know. A group of filmmakers goes to a mysterious island to make a movie. A beautiful actress is kidnapped by a giant gorilla. The gorilla is captured and put on display in New York City, where he eventually falls off of the Empire State Building and dies (or the World Trade Center, if you watch the remake from the 1970s). It's a simple story, really. Ape meets girl, ape loses girl, ape finds girl, ape falls from the tallest building in the world.
In my view, it's the simplicity of the story that's the only real detriment to Peter Jackson's otherwise brilliant remake. That's not to say that there's anything wrong with the story; rather, the story's not really enough to support a movie longer than three hours. If Jackson had introduced some measured complexity to the plot, it could have served him quite well, I think. But as it is, much of the middle section of the film, though visually brilliant, feels like so much padding.
The film opens in what feels like a photorealistic version of 1930s New York City. Jack Black is magnificent as the near-sociopathic filmmaker Carl Denham (although, I admit, I may be a bit biased toward anything Jack Black does, just because of how hard he rocks). Naomi Watts is beautiful, as always, and compelling to watch. She's naive, but her character (vaudeville performer Ann Darrow) is given much more depth than the screaming beauty in the original. Adrien Brody, in his portrayal of playwright Jack Driscoll, isn't really action hero material, but that's not his role here. In fact, the film does a pretty good job of lampooning the film-within-the-film's action star, Bruce Baxter (Kyle Chandler), as an opportunist and a coward. He looks the part, but that's about it.
My main gripe comes with the middle of the film. After the first hour, the crew finally reaches Skull Island, and the special effects machine kicks into high gear. Don't get me wrong; there's a lot to enjoy in the middle hour of the film. There's a wonderful scene between Kong and Ann, where their relationship is established. There's a pretty marvelous fight scene between Kong and a number of dinosaurs, and it only runs a little bit long. But even with as spectacular as the effects were, I felt myself yawning a bit during this portion of the film.
The final hour of the film was brilliant, though, in my opinion. The great triumph of Peter Jackson's remake was in making Kong more than a monster. It goes without saying that Andy Serkis (on whose motions and facial expressions Kong was modeled) is the best digitally-altered actor in the business. Kong's movements and gestures are realistic, and his eyes convey a deep well of emotion that's never been possible to show until now. This is what made his death scene so poignant and heart-wrenching. Along with Kong's palpable agony, his relationship with Ann Darrow makes the scene work on another level than it ever had in the original film. Not only was Kong misunderstood by those who sought to exploit him, he'd actually found someone who did understand him, and who didn't want anything more than for him to be happy. I thought that the development of that relationship made the end of the film far more satisfying than it otherwise would have been.
There's a smart and subtle allusion to Fay Wray and the original King Kong, which was probably my favorite detail in the whole movie, and one that most viewers would miss. I didn't want to finish the review before mentioning it.
In the final reckoning, King Kong is a very good movie. I believe it could have been a great movie, had it been about a half hour shorter, which is a bit of a shame. But if nothing else, the film cements Peter Jackson's place as one of the great filmmakers of our time (even if he may need to be reined in a bit sometimes).
King Kong movie: Better than the original
Action/adventure: ***
Overall: ***
In my view, it's the simplicity of the story that's the only real detriment to Peter Jackson's otherwise brilliant remake. That's not to say that there's anything wrong with the story; rather, the story's not really enough to support a movie longer than three hours. If Jackson had introduced some measured complexity to the plot, it could have served him quite well, I think. But as it is, much of the middle section of the film, though visually brilliant, feels like so much padding.
The film opens in what feels like a photorealistic version of 1930s New York City. Jack Black is magnificent as the near-sociopathic filmmaker Carl Denham (although, I admit, I may be a bit biased toward anything Jack Black does, just because of how hard he rocks). Naomi Watts is beautiful, as always, and compelling to watch. She's naive, but her character (vaudeville performer Ann Darrow) is given much more depth than the screaming beauty in the original. Adrien Brody, in his portrayal of playwright Jack Driscoll, isn't really action hero material, but that's not his role here. In fact, the film does a pretty good job of lampooning the film-within-the-film's action star, Bruce Baxter (Kyle Chandler), as an opportunist and a coward. He looks the part, but that's about it.
My main gripe comes with the middle of the film. After the first hour, the crew finally reaches Skull Island, and the special effects machine kicks into high gear. Don't get me wrong; there's a lot to enjoy in the middle hour of the film. There's a wonderful scene between Kong and Ann, where their relationship is established. There's a pretty marvelous fight scene between Kong and a number of dinosaurs, and it only runs a little bit long. But even with as spectacular as the effects were, I felt myself yawning a bit during this portion of the film.
The final hour of the film was brilliant, though, in my opinion. The great triumph of Peter Jackson's remake was in making Kong more than a monster. It goes without saying that Andy Serkis (on whose motions and facial expressions Kong was modeled) is the best digitally-altered actor in the business. Kong's movements and gestures are realistic, and his eyes convey a deep well of emotion that's never been possible to show until now. This is what made his death scene so poignant and heart-wrenching. Along with Kong's palpable agony, his relationship with Ann Darrow makes the scene work on another level than it ever had in the original film. Not only was Kong misunderstood by those who sought to exploit him, he'd actually found someone who did understand him, and who didn't want anything more than for him to be happy. I thought that the development of that relationship made the end of the film far more satisfying than it otherwise would have been.
There's a smart and subtle allusion to Fay Wray and the original King Kong, which was probably my favorite detail in the whole movie, and one that most viewers would miss. I didn't want to finish the review before mentioning it.
In the final reckoning, King Kong is a very good movie. I believe it could have been a great movie, had it been about a half hour shorter, which is a bit of a shame. But if nothing else, the film cements Peter Jackson's place as one of the great filmmakers of our time (even if he may need to be reined in a bit sometimes).
King Kong movie: Better than the original
Action/adventure: ***
Overall: ***
posted by Fargus... | 7:56 AM
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