Title: King Kong
Year: 2005
Director: Peter Jackson
Starring Cast: Naomi Watts, Adrien Brody, Jack Black, Andy Serkis
Rated: PG-13
NoFace for Film rating: 5 out of 7
About a month ago I went to Universal Studios with my boyfriend, sister, and her friends. Everywhere I went throughout the park I saw King Kong’s face. You see posters with his face. The employees make references to him. There’s a hundred foot statue of him near the Terminator 2 ride. And of course, he assaults your tour bus as it makes its way inside one of the studio sets. At the end of the day I thought to myself, “Dammit! I should have watched the movie before I went to Universal Studios!”
Several weeks later I rented the movie and sat down to watch.
Unless you’re a 5-year old or have been living under a rock your whole life, you know the story of King Kong. It’s in essence, a love triangle between a man, a woman, and a hundred foot tall gorilla with a thing for cute blondes. Sure, there’s that whole “beauty and the beast” aspect of it and the juxtaposition of King Kong’s jungle environment with that of Depression-era New York City, but at the heart of it is a lonely ape who found a girl and fell in love.
Peter Jackson had mentioned in interviews that he’d wanted to remake this classic story since he was just a lad; before the juggernaut that is the Lord of the Rings trilogy was but a twinkle in his eye. And boy howdy, does he do a great job at it.
The story begins with a (literally) starving actor Ann Darrow (Watts), who is caught stealing an apple by Carl Denham (Black), a struggling director with dreams of creating a masterpiece. Carl pursuades Ann to travel by boat with him to Singapore and star in his latest movie. On the ship Ann meets Jack Driscoll (Brody), a playwright who was tricked by Carl into coming along for the ride. Naturally, Ann and Jack fall for each other.
Of course, giant mythical apes don’t live in heavily populated areas like Singapore, for the ship is actually headed for Skull Island- a dark, dense jungle teeming with unfriendly natives, giant bugs, and other scary beasts. The natives see Ann and her pretty, pretty blonde hair and decide that she’d make a nice offering for their giant hairy ape god. The adventure begins.
Now, one can’t talk about a King Kong movie without talking about the big guy himself. Just like what they did to bring Gollum to life, the brilliant Andy Serkis put on a special motion capture suit and portrayed King Kong, capturing not just his movements but his facial experssions as well. Serkis (with Jackson’s direction of course) does a great job in humanizing the ape. There’s a cute scene where Ann tries to humor King Kong by doing her vaudeville acts (dancing, backflips etc.). While the big lug is just watching her, there is at first a look of confusion, followed by amusement, on his face. Also -and this may sound silly- but near the end of the famous “top of the Empire State Building” scene, I started crying. Yes, I cried during King Kong. It was just so sad. I felt very sorry for him, like when I felt sorry for Gollum during his conversations with himself (but I didn’t cry for Gollum though). Well done, Mr. Serkis.
As for Jackson’s work as a director- well, the LOTR trilogy will always have a special place in my heart and I don’t think anything can ever top that work. However, he does a really decent job in this film. I thought the special effects were overall great, except for the scene in which Jack, Carl, and the ship’s crew are trying to escape a brontosarus stampede. Maybe it’s because I watched the movie on a plasma TV, but some of the shots looked fake. It was at times obvious that the shots of the men running was just spliced in with shots of the brontos running.
And as for the actors, I thought that overall, they did a pretty good job. It was refreshing to see Jack Black in a serious role that didn’t require him to act stupid and make faces at the camera. His Carl Denham was a pretty good villain- the kind who does all the wrong things for what he thinks are the right reasons, even at the cost of people’s lives. And while I preferred her acting in The Ring, Watts was pleasant enough as the unlucky lady stuck in the middle of a love triangle. As for Brody, I didn’t think he struck me as the hero type until I saw this movie. Although I found it a little silly for a playwright to suddenly pick up and know how to use a rifle and traipse through the jungle, Brody somehow manages to pull it off. Oh and by the way, I personally thank Peter Jackson for the gratuitous shirtless shot of Brody in one scene. Meerooow.
The supporting cast was overall pretty good too. I especially loved Thomas Kretschmann as Engelhorn, the badass sea captain who seems to come in at just the right time. I also loved Serkis’s other role as Lumpy, the scowly but asskicking cook. I didn’t even recognize him at first until I looked more closely at his face.
I can’t compare Peter Jackson’s King Kong to any of its previous incarnations since I hadn’t seen any of them, but I rather liked this version and recommend renting it.
Technorati Tags: King Kong, Peter Jackson, Adrien Brody, Naomi Watts, Andy Serkis, Universal Studios
4 Responses to “King Kong”
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I’ve seen the older versions of King Kong and it’s hard to compare them since the technology has greatly improved since the 1970s and 1930s. Although, I will admit that all the previous Godzilla movies are way better than that piece of crap 1998 Godzilla movie.
Marvo- typical episodes of the Power Rangers were better than the 1998 Godzilla movie.
King Kong ice skating on a frozen pond was pushing it.
King Kong ice skating on a frozen pond was pushing it.
Admittedly yeah, that part was delving into cheese territory. It played out for too long as well.