STUFF YOU GOTTA WATCH - King Kong 2005

NOT THE GORILLA MY DREAMS

A review of the second unnecessary remake of KING KONG

By John V. Brennan
Copyright © 2005, John V. Brennan.
Posted March 12, 2006

KING KONG

(2005)
With Jack Black, Naomi Watts, Adrian Brody and a big old ape named Kong.
Directed by Peter Jackson

Director John Waters once said something along the lines of this: why remake the classics? Why not remake the crappy movies instead?

Anyhoo, here's the good news: Jackson's "new" King Kong (the ape, not the movie) is a splendid creation, Jackson accomplishing with CGI effects what Willis O'Brien did with stop-motion animation: creating a believable living, breathing giant ape. Yes, once in a while, New Kong has that unrealistic video game look that CGI effects too often do, but then again, the original Kong sometimes looked like big rubber head. New Kong has a personality that does justice to his predecessor; he is often surly, occasionally playful and sometimes contemplative, content to sit and watch a sunset with his woman by his side. That woman is Naomi Watts, and she's the best thing about KONG 2005. It is easy to see why the big guy falls in love with her - she's beauty enough to slay any beast, and she doesn't just slay with her looks; she also gives the film's best performance. If an actress could win an award for having "Best Chemistry with a CGI Effect", Watts would walk away with it. The best scenes in KONG 2005 feature Watts and New Kong simply getting to know each other. This is actually an improvement over the original KING KONG - despite Fay Wray's solid place in movie history, she is still little more than the 1933 equivalent of eye candy in the original KING KONG, establishing no real relationship with the big fella beyond screaming at the top of her lungs whenever he is near. Naomi Watts and New Kong, however, are a blast together.

Here's the bad news: that is just about the only improvement over the classic version you will find in this three-hour overblown explosion of often questionable CGI effects. For example, take the ridiculous brontosaurus stampede. If CGI effects are supposed to be the be-all and end-all of motion picture magic, why did I keep thinking of Laurel and Hardy driving a Model T Ford in front of back-projected traffic? All that money, all that time, and Jackson couldn't solve the problem of making the dinosaurs and humans look like they actually co-exist in the same shot? If this is the best they can do nowadays, maybe it's time to ditch the computers and start re-exploring older FX techniques. Jackson and his technicians actually took time out from CGI-ing KING KONG to recreate, as closely as possible, the stop-motion KING KONG just for fun. This can be found on the DVD release of 1933's KING KONG. And fine work it was, too. Too bad they went right back to their bank of computers immediately after.

Jackson also seems afraid to keep his camera still and have the action unfold in front of it. In the original KING KONG, this was done out of necessity. It was hard enough to animate Old Kong and the dinosaurs frame by frame without worrying about moving the camera. With computer generated effects, you can have your "camera" whip around in 360 degree circles if you wish. But should you? Jackson does it all the time in the action scenes, and it is maddening. During another long section in which New Kong battles not one, not two, but three T-Rexes, the camera never allows us to get our bearings and simply watch the action. Every time we try to get a glimpse of what's going on, Jackson is whipping us away somewhere else - up, down, sideways. It's like trying to watch a movie while riding a roller coaster. You can enjoy the ride or the movie, but to trying to enjoy both may cause you to hurl your hot dogs and cotton candy.

At three hours, KONG 2005 is also longer than it needs to be by at least an hour. You could watch KONG '33, SON OF KONG and half of MIGHTY JOE YOUNG in the same time frame, and you would have more fun and fewer headaches. Some other recent CGI epics such as THE LORD OF THE RINGS (also by Jackson) and HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE were adapted from rather lengthy novels, so two and a half to three hour movie adaptations make some sense. KING KONG is a remake of a movie that originally clocked in a little over an hour an a half. It's a simple story about a boat, an island, a woman and an ape. Making it three hours is simply egotistical overindulgence. And by this time we've seen it all before in other CGI-heavy movies, especially JURASSIC PARK. There is hardly anything in this film that feels new, just more of the same. Much more. Not just three T-Rexes, but hundreds of man-eating bugs, a herd of brontos and an entire flying squadron of giant vampire bats. Jackson's modus operandi seemed to be "Okay, I like that effect - now give me dozens of them!"

The climactic scene on the Empire State Building, though again too drawn out, works well. Kong's death - there is a magnificent moment when you actually see the life go out of his eyes - would be more heartbreaking if the had focused more on the Kong-Watts love story and included fewer "JURASSIC PARK on Steroids" scenes, but as it is, our sympathy would go with Kong and Watts anyway because there is nobody else in the film to root for. Adrian Brody as Jack Driscoll (who is now a leftist playright turned screenwriter rather than a sailor) makes me ask the usual question: "Why Adrian Brody?" and the unusual question "Why a leftist playright turned screenwriter rather than a sailor?", while Jack Black, a good comic actor, almost makes the grade as an even sleazier Carl Denham than Robert Armstrong. But he doesn't have the voice or presence to pull off Denham's hammier moments and his facial expression and intonation of the classic line "It wasn't the airplanes... it was Beauty killed the Beast" will leave you wondering how on Earth that was the best take Jackson could get.

KING KONG was the fifth biggest grosser of 2005, behind four other huge CGI blockbusters: WAR OF THE WORLDS, THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA, HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE and REVENGE OF THE SITH. But if you take in the pre-release hype, fifth-place was considered lackluster box-office by some. Still, KING KONG got some rave reviews, with more than a handful of critics saying it is the best film of the year. If this is the case, then movies are no longer our best entertainment. KING KONG 2005 has its good points, and is a thousand times better than the ludicrous 1976 remake. But I'd like to think that a few years from now most of this KING KONG will fade from our collective memory, and the old KING KONG will still be remembered fondly as the groundbreaking film it was.

Peter Jackson remade KING KONG because he loved the original so much. I love the original KING KONG so much, I wish people would stop remaking it. ½ - JB