KING KONG

KING KONG
By Ken Leicht

King Kong,
You know the name of…
King Kong.
You know the fame of…
King Kong!
Ten times as big as a man!!!!!!

I don’t suppose too many people under the age of 1000 remember the terrible animated King Kong series from way back. The catchy theme song quoted above is all I remember. That and that the show was boring. As that qualifies as the only other version of King Kong I ever set eyes upon save for the original, I suppose Peter Jackson’s remake had to be okay. (Okay I saw the 70’s one but it’s more fun to pretend I didn’t). Anyway..

By the time I got around to King Kong 2005 pretty much every one else on earth had gone on and on about it so I had no expectations left at all. Considering I had few if any to begin with, it was okay. There has been grousing about the film being too long but the length didn’t bother me. And Jack Black was serviceable as Denham save for his reading of the “’twas beauty that killed the beast” line but really who but anybody actually in the 1930’s could sell that line.

The story of the film is the same but is stretched out to 3 hours. Film crew takes starlet to island and finds a big ape and a bunch of dinosaurs. Ape falls for starlet. Ape gets captured and brought back to New York. Ape gets loose, climbs to real high place and then takes the ultimate dive.

I think the extended length helps for the characterization of Anne Darrow but it didn’t do much for Adrian Brody’s thankless role as the writer or Jack Black’s cartoon-y Carl Denham. Naomi Watts’s turn as Anne Darrow is probably what makes the whole film work. She makes you forget that Kong’s nothing but a cgi effect. I mean you actually felt her sadness for Kong; her empathy for his loneliness; and she’s a pretty bang up juggler to boot. Kong himself is more of an ape in this film than the original but that’s what modern effects can do. And man do you feel his pain. The forlorn look he wears in the theater and when he takes it in the back from the airplanes. Ouch.

As for the other monsters, the T-Rex battle lived up to the hype for me. And the bugs and giant maggot things were quite disgusting. Pretty much the monster island stuff is what I always liked Kong for anyway.

As my mind is starting to wander as it often does late at night I guess I’ll wrap it up by saying that Jackson’s Kong remake is fun enough and that purists shouldn’t grouse so much about length or Jack Black because hey…someone was going to re-make Kong. Be thankful it was Jackson and that it was probably about the best re-make you could get and it was made by a true fan. As I’m sure you’ve read, his obsession with the film turned him into a filmmaker. So instead of grousing about the film’s length, think of what would have happened if Michael Bay did it. You think that could never have happened? Think again. And try to sleep at night.