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King Kong
When I heard Peter Jackson was
remaking "King Kong," and that he was tallying up the
highest studio tab to date in the process, my first thought was that an
untouchable was about to fall. The potential puns about an 800 pound
gorilla making for an equally hefty box office bomb seemed all too ready
to be admitted to paperŠmuch like the feeling I had about "Titanic" before it hit theaters in 1997.
Cameron's film, like "Kong," seemed
eminent for destruction: A high budget, high concept Hollywood spectacle
that, before it hit theaters, was making far more headlines for its
price tag than anything else. But, like "Titanic" before it, "Kong"
not only defies expectations, it exceeds them.
A striking, stirring, beautiful and
surprisingly touching blockbuster, Jackson's homage to the film that
made him want to get into the director's chair is an absolute delight.
And, given the ink another CG-creation is getting this season (Aslan,
the martyred lion from "Chronicles of Narnia"), "Kong" proves that no
one makes the fantastic come to life on screen better than Jackson. In
short, after you see this big ape, you'll realize how dull and banal all
those other digitized lions and tigers and bears have been.
Fleshing out the originals storyline
(pulled from the 1933 film), Jackson's "Kong" begins in Depression-era
New York City where two seminal events set the plot wheels in motion:
the bad reception of a director's unfinished film and the dismissal of a
Vaudeville actor.
After director Carl Denham (Jack Black)
gets word from the studio head honchos that he's about to be removed
from his own picture, he sets out on a frantic last ditch attempt to
high-jack his film and finish the job without the studio's blessing.
Down a leading lady, Denham sees a fresh-faced blonde (Naomi Watts)
in a window and immediately convinces her to become his new leading
lady. After scheming to get his screenwriter (Adrian Brody) on a departing ship for a distant locale,
Denham and his crew set out to sea.
What the crew soon discovers is that
Denham has designs to lead the ship straight for a deserted island
where, he hopes, he can shoot mythic creatures. Against the captain's
better judgment and, ultimately will, the ship lands on Skull Island
where, after an unfortunate run-in with the not-so-friendly natives, the
crew falls victim to a barrage of dangerous beasts. From man-eating
dinosaurs to massive insects to unsightly, giant worms, the island
proves a far too dangerous spot to shoot special effects on the cheap.
And, after the crew loses its leading lady to the resident huge gorilla
of the otherworldly isle, a search and rescue effort turns into an
unfortunate capture for the kindly beast with a short fuse.
Clocking in at just less than three
hours, "Kong" hits all the points that it should. The scenes on
Skull Island, in which Jackson's impressive beast wrestles with bats and
has a particularly bout with a T-Rex, prove some of the best action
sequences the director has ever shot.
While it can be repetitive to see big
creatures fight, Jackson manages to infuse spunk and personality even
into the relatively nominal dinosaurs who flash across the screen. More
impressively, the director turns his big dumb ape into quite something
else: a living, breathing, sympathetic creature.
After Kong runs off with his blonde
bombshell in his hand, we watch as these two expressive mugs connect
with more than words. Focusing his camera on close-ups of his two
stars-the ape and Watts-Jackson evokes suffering, humility, fear and
longing from the two, each trapped in their own separate prisons. In
doing do Jackson creates a surprisingly touching love story and an
equally surprising hero who, without ever doing anything more than
grunting, manages to win the audience's sympathy and respect.
Jackson also reminds us that "Kong,"
while seemingly little more than a classic Hollywood spectacle, is also
a meditation on the dark side of human nature.
On the surface "Kong" is a classic
tale of hubris; Denham lures Kong back to Manhattan (where he ultimately
wreaks havoc on the city before tumbling from the spire of The Empire
State Building) only to see his selfish scheme end in disaster. But, as
Jackson points out, the film can also be understood in political terms.
As one of the young sailors, played Jamie
Bell, reads and discusses "Heart of Darkness" en route to Skull Island,
Jackson reminds us that "Kong" like Conrad's story, is ultimately a
fiction about colonialism. Here the Westerners arrive on foreign soil
and drag an indigenous beast back home with them, for profit, much like
the Western super powers colonized foreign lands and peoples during the
better part of the 20th century.
Of course for those who don't want to get mired in such political concerns, "Kong," like any great Hollywood entertainment, is easily digested as a classic story of ape meets girl, ape loses girl. That this particularly simian love story seems worth its $200 million+ price tag, says it all. Grade: A
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