Jackson succeeds on nearly every level at entertaining his audience, but while it makes sense to repeat the bi-planes and Empire State Building ending, it’s mildly anti-climactic by the time we get there. Some trimming of emotive stare shots and slow motion attitude shots could have brought this baby in at about 2:30 and its artistic star rating up. The best portion of the film is the middle, since modern technology makes the experience of humans fleeing from large monsters on a jungle island so much more real, but this middle sure is a big thrill.
“King Kong” is, above all else, a monster movie. It features the giant gorilla Kong (played pre-CGI by Andy Serkis; no wonder the facial expressions were so good), numerous species of dinosaurs, human-size bats, various overgrown mutated insects, a freaky, prehistoric tribe of grunting people, and some multi-mouthed tentacled thingies that suck in their prey. The tone of the film resembles the Indiana Jones films or “Jurassic Park 2” more than the Lord of the Rings, especially since Jackson tells whole portions of the story non-verbally. Far too many characters also meet grisly ends with too little impact on the story.
The opening third of the film sets up the story of obsessed movie director Carl Denham (Jack Black), out-of-work vaudevillian hoofer Anne Darrow (Naomi Watts), and articulate, brooding writer Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody). After losing his financial backers’ support on his latest movie, Denham skips town on a ship to finish it anyway, recruiting Darrow to replace his recently departed big name star, and tricking Driscoll into coming along to finish the screenplay.
The ship and film crews feature various stock characters that mostly turn out to be bodies for piling up once the danger begins. One exception is the male lead in Denham’s film, Bruce Baxter (Kyle Chandler), who serves as both arrogant comic relief and alleged hero. The romantic coupling of Driscoll and Darrow ends up, justifiably, upstaged by the lady’s relationship with the King.
Black is a revelation as the relentlessly opportunistic filmmaker, delivering a couple of nearly convincing speeches about dedicating his film to fallen comrades. His considerable acerbic comic talent lends an air of surprising authority to a role that another actor would have made detestable. This guy’s attitude almost makes you side with him despite repeated errors in judgement. Brody, a focused, articulate performer, lends much needed depth to a passel of B-movie characters, and surprisingly convincing toughness in the face of great conflict. But the real, tough, sensitive, sexy, delightful, athletic performance comes from Watts. Her scenes entertaining her giant captor with juggling and dance routines nearly steal the picture. The soap opera shenanigans in the ape’s hand are more the director’s doing than Watts’, but she pulls those off, too. And finally, Serkis’ performance combined with the CGI effects for King Kong capture a truly dangerous (check out his fight with three t-rexes), non-human, though emotionally motivated character. We can’t really love him, but can at least understand Darrow’s feelings for him.
Oscar-wise, I don’t see this flick pulling much weight other than in technical categories and perhaps a Best Actress nod for Watts. It’s a ton of fun and worth repeated viewings, but it’s ultimately a lotta fluff.
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