King Kong (Peter Jackson, 2005)



I have to admit that I didn't really expect to like Peter Jackson's remake of King Kong; aside from not being a huge fan of the original (and I realize this is heresy for someone who's been a hardcore monster movie fan for almost forty years now), I wasn't entirely sure that Jackson, who really kind of got out of the monster movie business over a decade ago, could go back and make a good old-fashioned monster movie. More fool me; King Kong is everything a remake should be, and isn't everything that the glut of pale, unnecessary, and/or stupid recent remakes has been.



What Jackson did with Kong was not to "re-imagine" it (as so many directors have recently been doing with horror films, much to their detriment; the remake of The Hills Have Eyes is testament to just how wrong these things can go) as to amplify the original; the movie runs almost twice the length of Merian C. Cooper's 1933 opus, but not because Jackson added subplots or what have you. He simply extended scenes (and, in one notable case, added a scene that is the subject of legend, deleted from the original after audiences had an averse reaction to it). The things pared from the original film were pared because they hinted at racism (Charlie the cook is still here, but he's now known as Choy, and has a much smaller role). And, aside from one other change, the resulting product is remarkably faithful to Cooper's original film, but is, in every respect, bigger. The effects are wonderful, and since this is a movie whose main attraction is the effects (and always was, even in 1933), that's the strongest recommendation I can give it.



There is, however, that one change, and that's where Jackson's Kong becomes problematic. In the original, there was the big ape, and there was Ann Darrow (Fay Wray/Naomi Watts). Ape meets girl, ape falls for girl, girl is scared of ape, girl comes to see that ape isn't such a bad guy after all. The difference is that there was never a time in the original where Ann Darrow wasn't scared of Kong. Here, however, once Darrow comes to the realization that, hey, apes have feelings too, she obviously develops feelings for him as well. Now, this isn't a case of girl falls in love with ape, but girl obviously considers ape to be a thinking, rational being, and is alternately terrified and disgusted by the humans' actions towards the ape. This makes perfect sense given the attitude of humans towards animals in the two time frames when these two versions of the film were made. (I haven't seen the '76 remake of Kong in way too long, and so can't rope it into the discussion here.) This change in Darrow's character makes perfect sense, and for most of the film's length, I was all set to say that it's one of the changes that make this a better film than the original. Unfortunately, that all falls apart at the very end; the change in Darrow's reaction to Kong makes the immortal final line, which is delivered here verbatim from the original script, more confusing than anything. Now, I'm going to assume that everyone and their mothers has seen one version of Kong or another and expound on this, but on the off-chance you've been living on Skull Island for the past eighty years, and have never seen any version of King Kong, skip the next paragraph, which contains spoilers.



"It was beauty killed the beast." When Ann Darrow is still terrified of Kong, it makes sense. In one of the most memorable scenes form the original film, Kong, loose in New York, finds Ann Darrow and abducts her. Kong's whole idea is to get Darrow and go off somewhere that people aren't flying things around and shooting at him, so the two of them can live in peace, even if Darrow's not on board with that idea. All well and good, but it's Darrow's resistance, at least in part, that brings about Kong's death. In this version, however, Darrow's all about saving the ape. He doesn't abduct her-- she goes off and finds him, and tries to stop the airplanes by putting herself out there and yelling at them. (The idea of a five-foot-something woman shielding a twenty-five-foot ape with her body is ludicrous in the extreme, but it somehow works here; the pathos Jackson evokes in this scene is remarkable.) You get the idea that Darrow would be perfectly happy to cross the East River and, say, take up residence in the New Jersey Pine Barrens with her simian pal. Sorry, Pete, but this time, it was the airplanes.



Okay, now that the rest of you have joined us, I've focused entirely too much on Naomi Watts (who is wildly inconsistent in her acting abilities, honestly, but really does an excellent job here) and Andy Serkis (who is not at all inconsistent in his acting abilities, and for whom I have an undying love) and not said a word about the rest of the cast. Another reason I avoided this movie is because I don't think it would be possible to stick together a bunch of actors I'm less inclined to want to see in a movie. (Oh, wait, someone did-- Horton Hears a Who. Steve Carrell and Jim Carrey in the same movie?) Adrien Brody is a good actor, but he takes the most godawful roles. Jack Black is not a good actor, and he, too, takes the most godawful roles. Jamie Bell? I got allergic to him after Billy Elliott. Thomas Kretschmann is a brilliant actor (viz. Der Untergang), but, like Brody, winds up in movies that are just painful to watch (viz. Immortel: Ad Vitam). And yet all of them have renewed my faith in their acting abilities in this movie-- yes, even Jack Black. His name on a film will not be an automatic "no" any more (the way Jim Carrey's or Steve Carrell's is). How did Peter Jackson manage to yank these performances out of these actors? I have no idea. But he did it. And he stuck them in a three-hour movie that plays faster than many two-hour movies I've seen. The start's a little slow, yeah, but once you get into it, wow. Jackson does, most certainly, still know how to direct a monster movie. And, with a few missteps, he certainly did a fine job on this one. *** ½