Harry's KING KONG Review!

I was very terribly nervous, excited and anxious to see KING KONG when it unleashed upon the screens of Butt-Numb-A-Thon 7. The audience was primed, they all knew it was going to play. I never even really made a pretense of it not playing simply because… well, frankly – there was no point. Everybody that’s familiar with my name knows that I’m a kongaphile. I love the big monkey.

My favorite film of all time is a tie between Michael Curtiz’s THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD with Errol Flynn… and Merian Cooper’s KING KONG. Right now, Kong has a slight edge on Robin Hood, just cuz – I’ve been watching that magnificent original 33 DVD and docs like a shivering recovering addict.

There really is no need to go into my love for the original, most of you know that. Instead, this is about my love for Peter Jackson’s remake. And yes, it’s love. I swear the movie felt like a blink to me. All this talk of it being a long movie, to me, it simply wasn’t long enough.

Is it better than the original 1933 movie. To me? Absolutely not. I prefer the rhythms of the dialogue, the pulse of Steiner’s score and the nightmarish dream that the black & white infused upon it all.

When you sit around and you think of your favorite films. Or, more specifically – the film that impacted you most. The one that gave you the emotional lift that possibly altered your entire way of thinking. A film that is your obsession, compulsion and that film that makes you glow in that zealot manner when you talk to others about it. For a few of us Kong fans, that’s KING KONG. No one more so than Peter Jackson. He’s thought about, not so much about remaking KING KONG – as much as offering up his dream of KING KONG. Because that’s what this is.

For when you walk into a theater playing his KING KONG, you’re not walking into a film quite like any film you’ve seen before. You’re walking into gobs of loving detail and passionate takes on the Rosetta film, from which this was pulled. This is a film about a life long pursuit to celebrate the joy of adventure, fantasy filmmaking. This is Peter Jackson so in love and happy that he’s throwing caution to the wind and just making the movie that he’s dreamt an entire life about making.

There are too few filmmakers that work with this intense level of passion. Now – is it perfect? Not to me. I love the film dearly – but I really do disagree with the portrayal of Carl Denham in the screenplay and as a result of that misstep – I feel it slightly skews the entire production. By having Denham, Driscoll and Darrow all at odds at the end, Jack and Ann disliking Carl. Ann and Jack not together on the stage in front of Kong and by strengthening the bond between Ann and Kong – there’s a major shift in the type of story that’s being told.

What is precious about the original Kong is that everyone respects Kong. Denham was exhibiting him for profit, true. But that wasn’t a malicious act of exploitation in his mind, that’s very important. Kong represented the great untamed unknown. In the early thirties, the idea of the “lost world” and the “great unknown” where opportunity and greatness laid waiting for modern man to bring her to civilization – it was the era. Here, they’ve overtly made Denham a shameless exploiter, to such a degree – that to sell KING KONG to the world – he’s altered the truth of the tale to lie as to who the hero that saved Ann was – and to cast someone else as Ann to the public.

As a result we end up being force fed our sympathy to Kong, where in the original – it simply came naturally. Here we have no choice, because he’s the only pure character. By making Ann long to be with Kong out of her respect for his simple love of the sweet things in life and the protection he gave her, never mind that he is who put her in danger to begin with by abandoning her in the jungles of Skull Island… It’s a fundamental change to their story.

By making Ann a willing participant of Kong’s affections, there ceases to be unrequited love. It is now, while completely non-physical, a co-dependent relationship. In the original, Kong died for a love that was not returned or understood. Here – he dies for a love that is shunned by all, but the one he loves. He finds love before the end. That is a very powerful emotional place to take the audience. In fact, it is where Ang Lee takes us in BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN. A film where an unspoken, unacceptable love is hatched in the wild mountains of Montana. Where the constraints of society and the times forces the separation – and ultimately the unfortunate issue of intolerance breaks into this private matter. Essentially – Peter and Ang are exploring the exact same territory, only… KONG is a helluvalot more fun.

Everybody that loves KING KONG, the original, loves different things about it. My favorite character in the original wasn’t King Kong or Ann Darrow… It was Robert Armstrong’s Denham. I loved his cocky sense of adventure, his ability to pull triumph from the clutches of defeat. How the idea to bring Kong back to the world wasn’t a driving pursuit, but the results of defeating him with a desperate throw of a gas bomb.

I loved the rhythm of his dialogue, the way he held himself, how he walked away from the natives at the beginning, how when he told the tale of Kong on the stage there was a sadness to his voice when he spoke of Kong on his island. Jack Black’s Denham is portrayed as a smarmy desperate huckster that’d sell his own Grandma for a chance at success. He doesn’t care about anyone, but himself, if even that. This is a radically different character from the original. And is an interesting exploration of the “exploiter” character. As a result, I don’t believe the last line should be his anymore, it belongs to Jack.

Adrien Brody’s Driscoll is a wonderful reimagining of the character. Based less on Bruce Cabot’s rough and tumble sailor, and more, I believe, upon Jack London’s Humphrey Van Weydon from SEA WOLF – a fellow writer forced to write upon a steamer heading for a fog of its own. In Michael Curtiz’s SEA WOLF – I believe the most amazing tone and unrealized marriage exists for a KONG film. Putting Wolf Larsen and George Leach and Weydon and Prescott and Ruth Brewster on SKULL ISLAND – oh… that’s my dream. Of course – I’d only ever be happy if it were Edward G Robinson as a blind Wolf Larsen chunking gas bombs in the general direction of the roars. With John Garfield leveling off a Tommy gun and Knox realizing he’s a novel of the lifetime playing out before him.

One could criticize Peter Jackson’s KING KONG for a million things that it isn’t, but that would be to entirely miss the point of what it is. This is a full exploration of what PETER JACKSON saw and wanted to explore in the original film – and to bring out. The mad insane crazed bits of action. The train wreck of brontosauri, it’s unlikely, horrible and sad. Looking at that broken tonnage of flesh, I couldn’t help but think about the various predators on this island that would feast for weeks upon this humbled herd of broken sauropods… the long necked creatures belching out their tortured agony, writhing about trying to walk upon their broken limbs – we don’t linger, but my mind did.

The V-rex battle is simply heaven. As a boy that loves his monkeys and lizards – this was bliss. Of course, I’d be happy to just see an Ape fight an Alligator in a cage match. And in my Shaw Brother films – watching monkey vs. cobra… is just amazing. I do think the sound design on the original Kong was a bit better in an odd mono-fetishistic way. The Rexes here just don’t seem as “evil” as that original Rex. I do have to say though – for while I was watching KING KONG – I was only ever 9 years old and watching through a blissful smile.

I’ve seen the film twice now. Once with the greatest audience on Earth – that cheered and applauded everything that was magnificent about the film. And another that was listless and bored at a pay screening. I was still clapping. I was still cheering, so was my nephew. It just felt like such a completely different feeling. Amazing the difference you get between just a regular audience – and one of the most primed and rearing to go audiences on Earth. I wish all films had an audience that loving, attentive and alive.

Alex Funke’s model work and photography deserves a special Academy Award in my opinion. It’s just… amazing. While certainly, I don’t necessarily want to vacation on Skull Island, well maybe with Allan Quatermain, but those jungles remind me of when I was a boy in the rain forests of the Yucatan – at Palenque and Tikal. Ruins and Jungle and the teeming living wall of living sound around you. I remember once, Mom, Dad and I were walking along a trail at night at Tikal – and we heard through the canopy of the jungle a javelina boar and a jaguar fighting. It was the most amazing and frightening sound I’ve ever heard. There’s a part of me, that almost wishes that Peter had made two movies out of KING KONG. One focused on SKULL ISLAND – that involved multiple days of tracking Kong through the jungle. I long for a campfire scene in the jungles of Skull Island. The men, all too scared to sleep. The jungle alive with it’s battles.

If anything, my biggest disappointment with KING KONG is in the fact that it ever had to end. I want to see a film of the guy that got the map off the island that drove a knife through his heart. Who did he lose on the island? What did he see? How did he end up there? What was his crew like? I know, I know. For most of you 3 hours and 17 minutes is enough in Kong’s world. For me, it’s an appetizer.

Lastly – I can’t express enough my love for the “prologue” that took place in front of the shackled Kong. That “recreation” of the Kong villagers dance spectacle – it had to make Peter giggle for hours. Outstanding. Without a doubt this will be one of my most often watched films of 2005. My fave Kong moment? His confusion at trying to find the right blonde. Classic. We’ve all been there.

This is the great adventure of 2005. The culmination of a magnificent obsession. Personally I hope Peter takes some time off to just relax and renew. Kong’s the sort of movie that you can smell the blood, sweat and tears that went into making it. Wonderful.

It is most definitely my 2nd favorite KING KONG film. Seeing happy Kong is one of those things I just never thought I’d see. How brilliant are those moments of bliss for the beast? How precious are those moments for each of us? I love this KING KONG.