Movie Review: King Kong

Way back in the late 70s, when I was but a wee little boy of 5 or 6 years of age. I glimpsed something while hiding behind the corner leading to the living room — it was way past my bedtime — where my folks were watching a movie about one big giant monkey with a bad temper running around jungles or trees and later of concrete. The thump of his slow deliberate steps would haunt me in my childish nightmares for a few months. But it was my introduction to fantasy movies and later sci-fi and horror, which to this day in my thirty-somethings continue to fascinate me above any other genre of cinema. That big monkey marked my life, just like it did for many genre fans. Whether it was the original one from 1933 or the campy remake from 1976 and all its manifestations in between and since.

So one can understand my enthusiasm at seeing the remake being done with today’s technology in special effects engineering and all the possibilities that come along with it. 207 million dollars of budget. Giant Monkey. Peter Jackson. What could possibly go wrong? Just about everything it seems.

Peter Jackson is best known for the over-ambitious, over-produced trilogy with an insultingly repetitive score I like to call Bored of the Rings. But hey the guy knows how to make grandiose movies and he pays attention to myriad details. And I keep in mind that he made the beautiful Heavenly Creatures. Then I also remember Bad Taste (Or Dead/Alive), best known for being the movie that used the most artificial blood in history. I still can’t put my finger on Peter Jackson, but I don’t think he’s the cherry on the sundae, like most critics seem to think.

This new remake has its good moments but it also has a lot of bad and ugly ones.

THE GOOD

• The Special Effects are OUTSTANDING. Just give him the Oscar now. No need to even submit other entrants. This is a done deal. The Running of the Brontos of Pamplona scene was SPFX mastery.
• Every time Kong goes ape-shit (I’ve been holding back until now to use that expression). Kong is simply fantastic to look at. A man in a monkey suit this is not. Obviously Jackson used the Gollum (Andy Serkis) for all the expressions and faces Kong makes. But when he goes on a rampage it’s an orgy of esthetically pleasing violence. It’s a work of art you can’t pull your eyes away from.
• The animators did their homework when it comes to gorilla behavior. It’s sublimely perfect.
• The city-scapes. Old New-York. The costumes. It’s just wonderful.
• The bugs… being somewhat entomophobic, that bug scene with its eerie silence kind of freaked me out, but then…

• All the action scenes are much too lengthy and always over the top. You’re saying, but dude, it’s a movie about a giant gorilla reeking bloody havoc, where’s your suspension of disbelief? Yeah but I can only suspend it so far up till I hit the pulley. This movie hits the pulley much too often.
• King Kong is another movie where the best boss-fight happens in the middle of the movie and not at the end. King Kong battling three T-rex’ down a ravine all while saving the lovely Ann Darrow from eminent death more than 5 times was very over-the-top and made the building stance in the end seem wimpy and flat.
• Oh did I mention the story? There’s a reason I haven’t yet. There isn’t any. Sure it’s an homage to the original, but it could have been fleshed out for a more modern audience. It’s a 207 million dollar movie, surely there was some budget left for scripting?

• Jack Black. ‘nuff said. Nope… wait. I’ve got more to say. Who the hell thought this guy could even be convincing as an over-zealous movie director? The second he steps on screen he sinks the movie. He can’t act other than being an obnoxious basement dwelling big brother. He has this smirk on his face for the whole movie. He takes away the gravity of the feeble story by being comical. Just didn’t work for me.
• The incredible amount of unprotected chloroform just sitting still on a weather beaten ship. Such an obvious set-up for the capture of Kong, that it’s insulting hand-holding.
• Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) doing back flips and juggling rocks and falling down to entertain the ape. This was so bad and awkward; you need to look away from the screen. She just came out of being hurled through a forest by monkey-boy, she should have spinal damage and she decides to put on a show out of the blue.
• The way that Driscoll is kept from leaving the ship is asinine.

Article Author: David Desjardins

Dave works in the IT industry despite his better judgment. He’s an artist at heart with a critical mind. He enjoys photography more than he could ever express. Dave feels a need to tweak his brain with copious amounts of taurine to stay sharp while absorbing all kinds of media on any medium. …

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