(Originally published in Rocky Mountain Bullhorn)
“It was beauty killed the beast,” said movie director Carl Denham at the conclusion of 1933’s King Kong, and one might say that it’s unbridled love – for that very same cinematic ape adventure – that ultimately does in Peter Jackson’s ultra-mega-deluxe holiday season remake. A spectacle of CGI pageantry and tender interspecies romance, Jackson’s reworking of the seminal fantasy film is clearly a passion project for the Lord of the Rings auteur, a chance to pay homage to his favorite childhood movie by bringing it into the 21st century with all the grand computerized razzle-dazzle he can muster. And yet that very same enthusiasm is ultimately what keeps this newfangled Kong from achieving the dizzying skyscraper-scale heights to which it so clearly aspires. Thrilling yet bloated, technically impressive yet emotionally remote, it’s a preordained blockbuster that astounds the eye but leaves the heart cold, an often-marvelous example of dynamic epic filmmaking that nonetheless proves more exhausting than endearing.
Aware that its second- and third-act rollercoaster set pieces will keep audiences from departing their seats, Jackson’s 187-minute Kong spends its first indulgent hour tediously establishing its Depression-era characters: craven moviemaker Carl Denham (a hammy Jack Black), playwright Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody), and down-on-her-luck vaudeville comedienne Ann Darrow (a luminous Naomi Watts). Swollen and protracted to the point of painfulness, this long-winded introductory set-up is the section most in need of serious trimming. Yet things kick into gear once the trio reach their mythical destination of Skull Island, where they encounter (objectionably stereotypical) dark-skinned savage natives and – after Ann is kidnapped and used as the centerpiece of a ritualistic sacrifice – all manner of prehistoric beasts, including fearsome creepy-crawly critters, hungry dinosaurs and, of course, Kong himself (embodied by Andy Serkis, à la Gollum, with a mixture of agile power and plush toy sensitivity).
Though a brontosaurus stampede is the film’s biggest set-piece stumble, Kong’s battle with three T-Rex-ish behemoths is an awesome sight to behold, and it’s there – as well as during the climactic Kong-vs.-warplane scuffle atop the Empire State Building – that this Kong comes closest to approximating the original’s aura of majestic wonder. Detrimentally, however, Jackson diminishes his supernaturally-sized primate’s ferociousness, reimagining him as an overly mushy monster who not only doesn’t eat innocent bystanders as in the 1933 version (instead, he just tosses them off-screen) but also becomes cowed by Darrow’s motherly reprimands after getting overly excited by her lame slapstick comedy antics. And worse, by dialing down the giant gorilla’s inherent, primordial animalism, Kong – fitfully extraordinary yet largely lackluster – consequently sabotages its central Darrow-Kong amour, squelching the relationship’s dangerous sexual undertones and, as a result, transforming it into something akin to puppy (or should I say monkey?) love.
Wow, you're gonna get hammered for this one.
You dislike this movie for trying too hard to be an epic blockbuster?
At least it doesn't have Celine Dion on the soundtrack.
Posted by: Joe Grossberg | December 15, 2005 at 02:57 PM