MOVIE REVIEWS
King Kong
Lauren Gaetano
King Kong was one of those movies my dad made me watch with him on a Sunday afternoon. It didn’t have the effect on me that it clearly had on director Peter Jackson. I remember liking it well enough, and I remember the famous last line. “Twas beauty killed the beast.” Something about that sentiment struck my 10-year-old brain as extremely unfair, though perhaps I was too young to understand exactly why that was.
In his remake of Kong, Peter Jackson films with the sensibility of a grown man remembering what it was like to be 10; to love dinosaurs, fear bugs and to know that the greatest evil in this world is to be treated unfairly. The movie is flawed and overlong, but in its greatest moments, it can give you the same visceral thrill that Spielberg and Lucas could back when they were cool.
The story takes place in Depression Era New York, the sight of which is one of Jackson’s most charming visual tricks. The sets aren’t photo real, and the characters don’t speak exactly as real people might. Everything is tweaked just a little left of reality; the colors more vibrant, the hair curled too perfectly, the eyebrows just a bit more engaged than they normally would be in everyday conversation. It is here that Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) is unsuccessfully trying to make a living as a vaudeville star. Still looking fabulous despite the fact she is too poor to purchase an apple, she is offered a role in a new movie by filmmaker, Carl Denham.
Denham, played by go-to imp, Jack Black, isn’t having too good a time of it either. His latest film was just given a vote of no confidence by his studio and they stopped production. But he isn’t planning on letting little things like permission, money, the law, or logic stop him. He rounds up a tramp boat and a skeleton crew under the pretense of filming on location in Singapore. What the crew doesn’t know is that Denham’s really leading them to the fabled and mysterious Skull Island. That is where he will film his masterpiece, and of course it is also where Girl Meets Kong.
The events that take place on Skull Island, are quite frankly and without hyperbole, some of the craziest shit I have ever seen in a movie. We’ve seen all of this stuff before, but it is staged in very unexpected and inventive ways. Poor Ann in particular is hurtled through a Rube Goldberg sequence of misfortune, and by the time she finds herself sandwiched between the giant gorilla and a T-rex, you know you’d go crawling back to Kong for protection too.
In fact, the relationship that is forged between ape and girl is one of the most believable and impressive effects achieved in the whole film, and a big part of what makes Skull Island work. It isn’t just a simple matter of the monkey becoming infatuated with the pretty blonde. At first, he sees her as some shiny new plaything he soon becomes tired of and tosses aside. It isn’t until Ann attempts to amuse him with her vaudeville act that he recognizes her as someone that can play with him back. Kong the Effect may not always be believable as an actual giant gorilla sharing the same space as the human actors, but he is always believable as Kong the Character. His expressions can reach beyond simply angry or sad and achieve much more nuanced sentiments. Things like, “You’re weird,” or “There you are. I was worried about you,” come across quite clearly on his face. It isn’t squicky or sexual. It is a friendship borne out of loneliness and necessity. Having Ann recognize the beauty inside the beast changes the tone of the story, but it also makes perfect sense that she does. She better recognize, or she’ll get her ass eaten.
The human players also give outstanding performances. Carl Denham is a slime ball, and Jack Black is the perfect little gob of grease. Adrian Brody is nicely cast, in my opinion, as screenwriter Jack Driscoll. He doesn’t look the part of a 1930’s matinee idol, but that is the point. He’s a sad sack aspiring playwright, forced to be a hero by circumstances beyond his control. Brody has a natural and appealing presence that makes him believable in both capacities. And Naomi Watts shines as Ann, lending depth, humor and spunk to what could have been a Pollyanna roll.
Unfortunately, the running time does get the better of the film at times. It takes a bit too long to get to the island, and there is entirely too much back-story given to tertiary characters we all know are dino-fodder anyway. I don’t mind taking the time out for character development in an action picture, but some of the exposition was so awkwardly placed it sometimes took me right out of a scene. I found myself thinking, “Why are you telling me this, movie?” when I should have been waiting in anticipation for the next big scare.
When the movie is firing on all cylinders, however, there is a feeling of thrill and discovery unmatched since the first time I saw Jurassic Park. It’s a modern movie with an old school sensibility, and it is absolutely worth your ten bucks at the box office. See it big and see it loud. You won’t be disappointed.
