King Kong
Written by Fran Walsh & Philippa Boyens & Peter Jackson
Directed by Peter Jackson
Universal Pictures
2005
Rating:


"King Kong" is epic filmmaking on the scale of "Titanic," not "Lord of the Rings." Whereas Peter Jackson's "LOTR" trilogy somehow managed to turn a grand fantasy into an intimate, human epic, Jackson's "King Kong" is as bloated and frequently graceless as James Cameron's 1997 opus about a sinking love boat. Both are films that are easy to marvel at — Jackson's recreation of New York City circa 1933 is just as painstakingly digitally crafted as Cameron's rendering of the "Titanic" — but Jackson at least breaks up his often failed attempts at character interaction with legend-in-the-making action set pieces before he finds humanity in the most surprising of places.

Jackson sets his "King Kong" in the Depression Era, a time when people could rarely get what they needed, let alone what they wanted. Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) is a vaudeville hoofer trying to make it into dramatic plays like the ones written by Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody). Driscoll's plays barely attract an audience though, and the lonely playwright wants to branch out into comedies and movies, like the ones directed by Carl Denham (Jack Black). A director with an Orson Welles temperament, Denham is being blocked from finishing his jungle picture because he's already over-budget on scenery shots and he's yet to take his actors on a remote island for the principal photography. While fleeing his producers, Denham comes across Ann and talks her into replacing his lead actress, enticing her with the promise of a script written by Driscoll. Driscoll has only written a few pages however, forcing Denham to kidnap the screenwriter for the voyage onboard the "Venture" to Skull Island.

The first hour of this 187-minute film is devoted to the voyage to the mythical island and establishing the backstories of the characters. This sequence is interminable and most often resembles "Titanic," mainly in the script's surprising tin-ear for dialogue. There's no such thing as subtext here. Every character says exactly what they're feeling and thinking, even if that means saying that they can't express what they're feeling and thinking. The reason for Ann's eventual feelings for Kong are spelled out by a fellow actor when he, in a bit of horrendous dialogue, makes explicit her father and abandonment issues. The interaction between First Mate Hayes (Jamaican-born Evan Parke) and cabin boy Jimmy ("Billy Elliot's" Jamie Bell) is even worse. As Jimmy and Hayes share their insight into Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," Jimmy asks if the book is an adventure. "No, it isn't," Hayes ominously intones.

Moments later, "King Kong" finally does turn into an adventure story, following a confrontation with the problematic tribe residing on Skull Island. Jackson tries to resolve the racial insensitivity of the original by selecting actors of different races and painting them an unnatural black. The result dehumanizes the aborigines into something resembling the Uruk-Hai and Jackson can't help but present the island's inhabitants as "other" through close-ups of the natives looking happily blood-thirsty as Ann is captured and presented as a sacrifice for Kong.

Kong's arrival snatching at last heralds the beginning of the film turning an entertainment and technical marvel to at least match Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack's original. Kong, as portrayed by Andy Serkis through motion-capture digital technology and brought to life by the special effects wizards at Weta, is the over-sized, anthropomorphic marvel we were promised with "The Hulk," and this time the promise is fulfilled. Kong's face expresses more than just anger; he actually shows amusement when Ann performs her vaudeville act (the saving grace in an otherwise awkward scene), profound awe while they watch the sunset over Skull Island and the sunrise over Manhattan and happiness while sliding over ice with Ann in his hand.

The extended sequence on Skull Island may be the greatest piece of pure entertainment of the year. Jackson displays Michael Bay's propensity for adding more, more, more to every action set piece, but Jackson's approach isn't loud and in-your-face; he really just wants to entertain you. While searching for Ann, the crew of the "Venture" first encounters the dinosaurs by staring at them awe-struck. Before long, they're being chased by a herd of brontosauruses and "Vastatosaurus Rexes" (the name created by the Universal marketing department for the more evolved T. Rexes), weaving through their legs and trying not to be crushed when they all fall down. And they fight off dozens of super-spiders and "meat-weasels" in a pit. Not to be outdone, Kong takes on multiple V. Rexes at a time, at one point battling them as they hang entangled in vines above a precipice. Jackson sends the action into hyperbole here, but what wondrous hyperbole it is.

"King Kong" only returns to "Titanic" awfulness when, after returning to New York, Driscoll sits through a performance of a comedy he wrote that fully explains where he went wrong with Ann.

The rest of that final hour is spectacular and heartbreaking, from the gentle excursion into Central Park to Kong's final showdown on the Empire State Building swatting down bi-planes.

Jackson took great pains to fix the subtextual problems of the original, while creating new problems of his own (that whole "Titanic" tableaux). He at least removes the presumably unintentional homosexual subtext of the 1933 film's dialogue. Interpret as you will the following exchange that nearly indicates that Denham (Robert Armstrong), Driscoll (Bruce Cabot) and Ann (Fay Wray) are in an unusual love triangle:

DRISCOLL: I'm gonna do some butting in….
DENHAM: What's the matter, Jack? You going soft on me?
DRISCOLL: You know I'm not….
DENHAM: Oh, you have gone soft on [Ann], eh? I've got enough troubles without a love affair to complicate things. Better cut it out, Jack.
DRISCOLL: Love affair. Think I'm gonna fall for any dame?... I haven't run out on you, have I?

At best, the original's view of women and love was purely adolescent. Denham resents that the film company has imposed a woman upon his movie, while Driscoll loathes that a woman is on his boat. It's as if their parents have forced them to let a girl into their club house. Kong allows Driscoll to work through his adolescent fantasy of rescuing his beloved, and Kong does the same on a much grander scale. There's even an Oedipal overtone to Kong's love of Ann, with Kong symbolizing a teenager tearing away his mother (Ann) from the father (Driscoll), even if he has to abduct her from her bedroom.

The new film resolves these problems by at least acknowledging the male characters' post-adolescent desires for Ann and by having Ann reciprocate Kong's feelings (Ann remains terrified of Kong even after his demise in the original despite a projected misreading by many viewers). The remake's relationship between Ann and Driscoll is intentionally unsatisfying because Driscoll is, as a writer, too repressed and internal to properly express his feelings. Ann still falls for Driscoll while sailing for Skull Island, but she rebuffs him after meeting Kong. The reason isn't that Ann prefers brute masculinity to sensitive intellectualism. Ann's preference for Kong resides with the fact that he has no problem expressing his feelings for her, even if that expression is through wrestling dinosaurs to the death, destroying Time Square, swatting down bi-planes and watching the sunset together. Kong is, to put it mildly, passionate.

That same kind of passion drives Jackson in his filmmaking. Only when Jackson represses his instincts, as he does in the film's first third, does his film suffer. When Jackson allows that ardor on screen, it turns "King Kong" into the best kind of moviemaking magic.

Posted Wednesday, December 21, 2005

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