King Kong (2005)
By PaulThen what kind of person are you, Mr.Denham?
Now that it’s hit the video shelves, King Kong (see original review) has been cemented in box office history as a hugely successful failure. Its half-billion dollar take was a huge disappointment compared to the desperately unrealistic hopes of a movie industry still reeling from a year of disappointments. Kong was supposed to ride in on a white horse and single-handedly rescue 2005 with a gross that would make Titanic look like Heaven’s Gate. I guess that was too much too expect for one film. Either that or the white horse just collapsed under the weight of the 25-foot gorilla on its back.
Also, the “too-cool-for-the-room” crowd has also turned on the film like a ravenous T-Rex. Despite a healthy 84% rating at Rottentomatoes.com, the internet discussion board wags would have us believe that Peter Jackson’s remake was a self-indulgent turkey that totally evaporated the good-will generated by the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Let me be the first to concede that King Kong was a film that cried out to be shorter. The 1933 film told almost exactly the same story in an economical 100 minutes, while this version required an extra 80 minutes to get the job done. If the original version was a spare Model T of a movie, 2005’s Kong was a Ford Excursion with pimped-out rims and an 80,000-watt sound system. It’s loud, flashy and just too damn big.
Taken as a series of set pieces, each one was masterfully designed and executed. Every dollar of the 200-million-dollar budget is on screen. The problem comes from that the fact that the film hits virtually every story point found in the original, but expands on it until the film groans under their collective weight. One brontosaurus menacing the crew in the original becomes a stampeding herd. And why be satisfied with Kong fighting one T-Rex when he can battle three? You eyes just get tired of popping out of your skull at all the amazing things that Peter Jackson’s team has thrown up on the screen.
The good parts are still good. Naomi Watts’s rapport with her digital simian co-star is magic when it’s on screen. Jack Black is also perfectly cast as the filmmaker with an allergic reaction to scruples. Andy Serkis manages to give the digital Kong a real heart through his motion-captured performance. However, Adrien Brody is largely wasted in the underwritten role of screenwriter Jack Driscoll. His romance with Watts’s Ann Darrow is never all that convincing.
For all the things that the movie does right, I think that Peter Jackson had been waiting too long to make his dream project and just couldn’t say no to himself. King Kong needed a more disciplined hand who could have shaved off a half-hour or more, giving the movie both a leaner narrative and more showings every day in the theater.
About the author:
Paul's cat has violent mood swings between ennui and apathy.
