Peter Jackson’s life long dream of making the definitive King Kong seems like a good idea on the surface, but the resulting 187 minutes of senses shattering spectacle might leave you longing for the comparative action of oh, say My Dinner With Andre. After a full 80 minutes of character development and ‘plot’ laying, one might be expected to beg for action, but Jackson has decided that there’s no setpiece that can’t be extended a good 10 minutes past any reasonable stopping point. Oh, and all that plot and character development? Flush it from your minds, because Jackson certainly flushes it from the film once the action kicks in. A vertiable text-book example of ‘over the top’, Kong may be to the tastes of some, but sensible movie-goers will find themselves desperately longing for that big gorilla to go ahead and fall from the lovingly rendered Empire State Building.
King Kong
2 & 1/2 Stars
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| Few people realize that Nick Nolte was the physical basis for Kong |
With the unparalleled success of The Lord of the Rings under his belt, Peter Jackson was effectively given the freedom to turn his lifelong dream of remaking King Kong into a box-office-busting reality. $207 million dollars later (which one must assume doesn’t include the reported $200 million Jackson was paid to direct), that most famous of gorillas is set to be unleashed upon an unsuspecting holiday audience. Expectations have been high, the publicity has been through the roof, and it’s been one of the most highly anticipated films of the year, but is the world really ready for a 187 minute long love-letter to a 25 foot silverback gorilla and the woman who defines jungle fever? More importantly, should the world care? After all, the last time audiences were treated to a ‘life long dream’ project the result was Luc Besson’s stupefying Fifth Element.
Set in 1933 (the year the original film was released), Jackson’s epic starts us off smack dab in the middle of Depression Era New York, where vaudeville actress Ann Darrow (the ridiculously beautiful Naomi Watts) has just been left jobless and near destitute with the closing of a theater. Luckily for her (or not, depending on your point of view) she soon comes to the attention of the near maniacal film maker Carl Denham (Jack Black, playing it as sedate as he knows how), who wants Darrow to star in his latest picture. With false promises and no small amount of deception, Denham has arranged for a ship to take his cast and crew in search of the mysterious Skull Island, where he hopes to capture the world’s last mysteries on film. Along for the ride is shanghai’d playwright Jack Driscoll (Adrian Brody), who finds inspiration in beautiful Ann (who just so happens to idolize him and his work), and rounding out the crew is an assortment of colorful characters (played by the likes of Colin Hanks, Andy Serkis, Thomas Kretchum, Jamie Bell, Evan Park, and a whole slew of other actors who will eventually serve as cannon fodder for the ensuing mayhem), on whom the first full hour is devoted to portraying their shenanigans and interplay (along with the rather paper-thin romance of Darrrow and Driscoll). Get to the smashy-smashy already, right?
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| Jack Black and a bunch of characters you don’t need to care about. |
Eventually, the movie remembers the point of all this and lands us at the foreboding (and forbidden) Skull Island, where Denham and his crew set out to film the rest of their movie against the supposedly abandoned ruins. One bloody (and slow motion filled) encounter with angry natives and a harrowing escape later, Driscoll discovers that Ann has been taken from the ship and convinces the crew to go on a rescue mission. Ann of course has been slated for a blind date with Kong, who absconds with the beauty into the primordial jungle, with the rest of the cast in full pursuit. 45 minutes later (we’ll get to that, I promise) a captured Kong (now given the first name of King) breaks free of the Broadway chains of Denham and tears up New York looking for his Ann. Unless you’ve just woken from a 74 year coma, you know the rest.
There are a lot of bright spots in Kong, but it’s difficult to pinpoint them after sitting through the myriad audio/visual assaults. There’s some real humor and drama at points, and had this film not been about the exploits of a 25 foot gorilla the character development of the first half of the film would be a real treat. However, once the action kicks in all that plot and character work is soon forgotten once Kong makes his entrance (in a rather anti-climatic sort of way, ironically enough). Jack Black, Adrian Brody, and Naomi Watts really shine at points in the first half of Kong; enough so that this reviewer actually missed their interaction once the real point of the film got moving.
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| Naomi Watts eerily mimics the audience’s slack jawed stare |
The care and attention Jackson paid to this spectacle is evident in nearly every frame of the film, from the wispy arm-hairs of Kong to the in-joke filled sets. It’s obvious that this is a much-beloved project for the former Hobbit chronicler. What’s also obvious is that Jackson has aped (get it?) another famous Jackson, in that he’s gotten to the point where he’s got no one to tell him ‘No’. If Peter was Michael, Kong might be considered his ‘Bad’, the first album the King of Pop made sans Quincy Jones. ‘Hey, ‘Bad’ had some hits on it’, you might say, but I’ll counter with ‘Sure, but the rest of it was crappy filler’. In Peter’s case, the filler isn’t so much crappy as it is mind-numbing action scenes that drag on so long as to become actually boring. That sounds almost impossible doesn’t it? Let’s take a gander at some of the sequences in question.
First off, we have Kong plowing through the jungle with his captive Ann. It’s an interestingly rendered sequence, with the point of view wildly swinging back in forth like the terrified Ann in Kong’s fist, but it seems to go on forever before culminating in Kong’s show of ownership. That’s achieved by swinging Ann around some more with possessive grunting and chest beating. Okay, so that’s not so bad. But wait! There’s the rescue team’s encounter with stampeding Brontosauruses (Brontosauri?), in which our would-be rescuers run underneath the panicked behemoths only to find themselves in danger of death by Velociraptor as well as Bronto foot. It’s a senses pounding sequence that literally entangles itself by the end. What should have been a breath taking run-for-your-life bit piles right over the edge into ridiculous territory, a fact that’s not helped by the somewhat spotty CGI work (a fault that is repeated throughout the film.)
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| Guess who just realized it’ll be an hour before they can hit the bathroom? |
Jackson knows that one death-defying escape isn’t enough, so next up we’re treated to Ann’s encounters with the other inhabitants of Skull Island. After escaping from a distracted Kong, she’s attacked by giant Gila-like lizards, crawled on by gargantuan centipedes, and soon face to face with not one but three Tyrannosaurus Rexes, which then erupts into a 15 minute (I think..felt like longer) fight sequence that pits Kong against all three T. Rex’s all the while tossing and catching Ann like the world’s screamiest cat toy. Just when you think the danger is over, Jackson pushes the ‘extreme’ button to extend the fight into a pit of vines with all participants swinging to and fro before finally ending in some serious bloodletting from Kong. While it may have read as exhilarating on the page, in practice the sequence is just filled with so many ‘Oh, c’mon!’ moments that boredom finally sets in. After all, you know neither Kong nor Ann is going to die or be hideously mutilated, so what’s the point in dragging it out?
Of course, there’s still the Spider Pit sequence, in which our would-be rescuers get beset upon by all manner of creepy crawlies, dispatching even more of the padded out cast. This scene was cut from the original King Kong, and strangely it’s the one point of the film where Jackson’s history as a film maker really pays off. It’s a truly disturbing sequence, but after everything you’ve seen already it becomes just another action piece that Jackson seems hell-bent to make you forget as he’s got so much more to show you. And of course there’s the capture of Kong, but that sequence, which is supposed to get us on Kong’s side, merely makes us no longer care about what might happen to the now brutally callous Denham.
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| Think this plucky youth will save the day at one point? |
While this part of the film is supposed to be the big thrill ride part of the movie, it’s also the most disposable. It’s on Skull Island where we’re supposed to understand why Ann feels such a kinship with Kong, but outside of a short comedic bit we’re not given much opportunity to understand her affection. After all, she does spend most of her time with Kong trying to escape him. This film asks audiences to make quite a number of mental leaps, but this is the one that stands out the most. Without that relationship established the rest of the film becomes an exercise in how much spectacle an audience can take without mass head explosions. The cast and crew we’ve been asked to care so much about is just thrown away with such little fanfare that it seems like most of their deaths were just excusesfor the CGI crew to come up with clever demises. The surviving members don’t act like the characters we were first introduced to, leaving us to wonder what will happen to them once they return to New York.
The answer to that question is ‘not much’. Once in New York we’re left with only Driscoll (who has apparently managed to alienate Ann on the boat ride back), Darrow (who has settled for chorus girl status), Denham (who is now living it up as the toast of New York), and Colin Hank’s character (whose only remaining job is to look judgmental). Kong escapes, smashes up Manhattan a bit, finds Ann, and then roams about unmolested for some 8 hours until the final confrontation with humanity atop the Empire State Building. This is where the film is really supposed to engage us emotionally, but I was so numb from the previous two and a half hours that it was simply impossible to care about the fates of Ann and Kong. The final sequence seems to drag itself out forever (I’m beginning to think this is a trend with Jackson), and what should be a powerful and tragic end is only capable of mustering up a sigh of relief.
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| So long that even the monkey passes out! |
I’m disappointed that a film with such aspirations could so easily diminish it’s high points through sheer excess of spectacle, and I’m all the more disappointed that Jackson spent more time playing in the hyper action world of Lucas rather than the more personal and engaging world of Spielberg. Even had Jackson shaved off a good 80 minutes from the running time, King Kong would still only rank as a slightly better than average big budget action film. It’s simply too much, too often, and too frenzied. And folks, I didn’t even get into Kong’s unmentioned ability to change size at will, the Olympic class athletics of the freakish natives (who are scarier than nearly anything else on the island), the apparent discovery that broody Jewish New York playwrights are the world’s greatest trackers, the vampire bats, the bad design of the dinosaurs, the nigh-insatiable desire for the death of Jamie Bell’s character, or the fact that Sauron designed Kong’s front Gate.
Okay, okay so I get it: This film is supposed to be culmination of Peter Jackson’s lifelong dream, so it’s only fair that he be allowed to indulge himself, right? Wrong. Folks, everyone masturbates, but we kindly refrain from throwing 207 million dollars at it, rendering it in CGI, and projecting it 30 feet across in mind-shattering Dolby Digital. I truly wanted to dig this film, but Peter Jackson just refused to let me. The bright spots are so far and few between that you’ll soon forget them, unlike the nigh-endless chase/fight/action sequences that drag on so long that you’ll be left numb to the entire strata of human experience by their oft-delayed end. Let’s not forget the 187 minute running time (3 hours and 11 minutes for you time-challenged out there), which in a kinder world would require some kind of federally mandated intermission.
As much as I was hoping we’d be seeing the work of the new wunderkind of big budget spectacle ala Steven Spielberg in the late 70’s, I’m afraid King Kong feels more like the work of a coked-out, sensation craving Michael Bay with an unlimited budget.