OK we all know the story, have seen one or both previous movies, and have seen numerous satires or takes on it’s basic beauty and the beast storyline. So with that in mind was it worth it for Peter Jackson to do it all over again with different actors?
Well as long as he got something from i I guess it was. I personally enjoyed aspects of the movie, but have no intention, nor need to ever see this or any other take on the King Kong story ever again. I enjoyed the first act set in 30′s N.Y. City. The sets and graphics looked great, the actors (Naomi Watts, Adrien Brody, and Jack Black), were on point, and there was buildup to something. I enjoyed it so much I was disapointed to see things shift to the boat headed for Skull Island. But I knew it had to happen. What I wasn’t quite ready for was how endlessly the time on that island would go on and on and on. It’s not so much for the suspension of belief required to posit an island full of prehistoric dinosaurs, people sucking pods, giant crawlies, and a mammoth gorilla, though this is not the kind of unscientifically correct mies en scene I would normally elect to donate funds to or watch without the thespian endowments of Ringo Starr and alot of hot cave babes. Rather it is for the time to think about things other than some of the superficial stuff on screen that this island hell should have been avoided.
The bulk of this 3 hour film is spent on the island with Naomi Watts somehow not being affected by being shaken and pounded while in the grip of a giant gorilla battling 3 T Rex’s simultaneously and running and climbing at breakneck speed with her in his hand. Ostensibly this is about establishing the Kong-Watts-Brody triangle. Mostly it seems an excuse to fulfill alot of Peter Jackson’s fantasies. The problem with having all this time doing nothing but falling and dodging stuff that makes you go ewww, is that it gave me too much chance to reflect on the nature of the Kong/Watts relationship. And it’s kind of messed up.
Now one angle that makes me ok with the movie in both past and when I can manage in the present, is that of King (as his friends call him), representing the ugly, unlovable guy in myself that the sweet pretty actress sees something beautiful in and falls in love with. One problem with this is that he’s a gorilla. He’s not David Merrick, a deformed but functioning and introspective human being. He’s a big hairy gorilla who pounds his chest to connote superiority and eats trees. He also presumably shits in the woods though we don’t get to see the humongus steaming pile I had hoped would put things in perspective at some point in jackson’s epic. But jesus you got to figure there’s alot of it around and that he and his environment have some odor issues despite the occasional lovely view of the setting Sun.
Now one of the dark and jaundiced places I was allowed by Jackson to go due to the ridiculously unedited nature of his movie (besides wondering if Jackson indeed employs editors for his films), was in finding the similarities between Kong’s macho posturing, intimidating nature, possessiveness, mood swings, and tendency to kill most women, and that of many abusive men and the women who love them in my own past experience as well as those of many friends and coworkers.
Kong abuses her, frightens her, and pushes her around, but he’s also kind of tough and dangerous and protects her from dinosaurs. This is apparently enough for Watts, Fay Wray, and Jessica Lange for that matter, to overlook all the abuse and think about settling down with their monkey-men. And she wants to stay with him. You can see it in her face as she’s reluctantly pulled back to civilization and the now boring writer guy who had seemed very appealing until getting a ride on the wild side. This is a real option to her. Staying in the jungle as the bride of a gorilla who puts her in danger and then shows his sensitive side just enough to make it all worthwhile.
But he’s a gorilla. Think about that. Let the implications roll around your noggin a little bit. And a part of her wants to stay with him.
Immediately those patterns very possibly forged into the DNA over millenia come to the forefront and like many women who date and marry smaller monkey’s, the allure of taming these brutes is very appealing. It’s a turn on. And it’s Peter Jackson’s fault. I blame him for every failed relationship I’ve had. You go to hell Peter Jackson. You go to hell and die!
No not really. I like Jackson and know it’s not his fault but undoubtedly some will accuse me of letting personal experiences and feelings taint my review of his crafty movie.
Well duh.
Personal or not, it’s hard to make a case for this being any more than a gorilla movie with very little to say. It’s a popcorn flick with long boring stretches and a sad ending. I was sad when I saw Kong die as a kid and it was Jeff Lebowski’s girlfriends fault. A 9 year old I saw this one with was similarly saddened and horrified, presumably at mans inhumanity and carelessness. And it it’s still sad watching him slip off the top of the Empire State Building with hurt and betrayed final breaths. This poor misunderstood creature shot at and hunted because of his size and inability to communicate, plummeting hundreds of stories to a city he didn’t ask to come to, does hit a soft spot.
But he’s still a girl eating gorilla.
Which brings me to another point the lifetime on the island gave me too much time to think about: Kong, and the Hollywood complex that made the original, just might be a tad racist. It is suggested that Kong consumed all the past sacrifices offered to him by the islands indigenous folk. But not Fay, Jessica, or Naomi. The islands inhabitants are all dark skinned black people. The 3 Americans are white blondes. Suddenly after years, decades probably, of Kong seeing women as mere floss to clear bark with, he’s smitten by the first white girl he’s ever seen. Jackson offers an element that redeems both himself and the latest incarnation of Kong slightly by having her do Vaudeville schtick for him, and thus showing some moxy and personality that were presumably absent from native girls who have grown up with dessicated parental figures who believe in virgin sacrifices and seem to have a serious vitamin C deficiency.
So that’s cool, and thanks Bob for pointing that out, but it doesn’t clear the original concept, or the still lingering subtext, which manages to have just a bit of the white mans burden mentality behind it.
But this is what unedited escapades on islands full of alot of silly creatures and guys posing with guns gets me in the search for thematic material and meaning. This shouldn’t take away from the probable intent of the movie which is to entertain and pay homage. In that Jackson succeeds except for the interminable periods where nothing is really happening. The movie looks good and everyone is good. Watts especially is terrific. Her early scenes where she plays a down and out actress with varying senses of wonder, confusion, and suppressed fear and naivete work really well in that early Hollywood way we’ve come to expect people (or is it actresses) in that era to talk and emote. I’ve liked her in everything I’ve seen her in and I’m not even attracted to her. Brody rocks if no other reason than he’s from Queens and a Mets fan. Black was born amusing and gets Dio, and that’s all I have to say about that.
As indicated the movie takes place during the era of the original. The De Laurentis version took place in the then present as Kong scaled the WTC instead of the Empire St Building. Perhaps this is one of the reasons Jackson chose to set the piece safely in the past. More than likely it was because that eras lack of satelite equipment and global transport, made it more likely an island with Dinosaurs could exist unkown to society or that said society would take such flimsy precautions in restraining such a beast in a crowded theater in the middle of Manhattan. Ultimately that choice works for those trying to retain some sense of plausability in the implausible.
Though i didn’t think all the CGI in the city worked as well as a guy in a monkey suit and miniatures, most of it looked good and the city had a nice combanation of period realism and of super surrealism. There were some great shots full of emotional storytelling like the one in the city when Watts is seen in the reflection of the doors leading into a seedy club she was about to descend into by Jack Black, who doesn’t turn to look at her just yet. This was an example of storytelling through images that mark great filmaking. It is weighty and profound in its own right and context. Problem is this and other isolated moments of heft and grandeur still take place in a gorilla movie that really has minimal depth and nothing important to say.
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