As much as I love this film with the same furiousity as the beast himself, I also know that this film will not be loved nearly as much by those who will see it after me. Some will complain about the running time. Others will find something wrong about the structure. And some will just not know what exactly they seen and not like it all the same. I know what it is. Peter Jackson’s King Kong is 200,000 kilowatt jolt through the skull. He blindsides you with images and thoughts and feelings that when you leave, you have to take a moment and reflect. Making a decision about the film while watching it or just after seeing the film you will not realize that you got everything you expect from the film AND with second helpings. Scratch that…THIRDS.
The story of a man, a woman, and an ape doesn’t need to be described. You know the story already. What this version does is tweak it a little, give some emotional depth and give us a heroine who deserves not only our sympathy (she REALLY has it bad in all three versions), but our respect. Ann Darrow in this film is a survivor of the Depression. Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) is a physical performer when we meet her. She’s starving, but likeable. When the theatre she works for goes belly up, she’s offered a job doing burlesque. By fate or chance, she refuses and finds herself in the clutches of Carl Durham (Jack Black), rouge filmmaker and scoundrel. She expiriences a slight romance that evolves with her and Carl’s screenwriter Jack Driscoll (Adrian Brody).
When she is taken by Kong, she quickly assesses the situation and begins to survive. Only when she realizes that Kong doesn’t mean to harm her that she finds a kindred spirit in the ape, a fellow survivor who uses brute strength where she uses cunning and quick reflexes. I love the scene where she realizes this and uses her street acrobatic skills to show Kong she’s not afraid of him. That bond is really what this film is all about.
The film really feels like a trilogy in itself. The initial scenes in New York and on the boat feels like a romantic comedy. The events on Skull Island feel like a completely different movie, mostly horror due to all the creepy crawly and big-teethed things around. When we go back to New York, it’s almost entirely an action movie. But what binds all three “movies” inside the movie is the heart given by all the characters, real and CG alike. Even as Carl is greedy and almost vile, we see he doesn’t mean any real harm. He just wants to be accepted by his peers. What he doesn’t see is that he destroys everything he touches because he’s not careful about what he does to others. But don’t get me wrong, there are amazing sequences all the way around. While the first act doesn’t have anything real exciting happening, the last two acts are almost entirely wall-to-wall. In fact, between dinosaur stampedes to fights in the vines to a brawl on the Empire State Building, we’re talking serious sensory overload. Jackson sees this film like a runner sees a marathon. He’ll give you time to catch your breath, but he won’t stop moving to do it. That’s probably why you need to give yourself some space after watching the film before making any decisions. But the real star of this film is Kong. When he’s on camera, you feel his presence. You understand his primal need. He acts like an ape; brutal, irrational, and impulsive. Ann might be a kindred spirit to him, but she’s also a prized possession. He wants to protect her the only way he knows how. Peter Jackson could have given us just a reheated plate of nostalgia in remaking Kong. Instead, he does something special, he gives us understanding of these characters. He gives us his vision of Kong, the one that’s been in his head for thirty-something years. And some of those ideas even surpases the original in many ways. But he doesn’t idolize Kong. He allows the ape to be an ape, nothing more, nothing less. True, a couple of special effect shots aren’t up to snuff, but it did more right than wrong, a WAY lot more. But still, this film will tank. I hope I’m wrong but American audiances aren’t interested in such complete wastes of time such as character development or complete flights of ingenuity. Yes, it is long, but works. When people ask me about this remake, I always stated that the only way that it will succeed is if Jackson indulged on every fantasy he has with this story. Even I didn’t know he had THIS many fantasies.