Film Review |
Back On Top: King Kongby M. Faust |
|
|
On the original “Saturday Night Live,” back in the days when you didn’t have to be embarrassed about admitting to watching it, John Belushi once did a bit as Italian schlockmeister Dino di Laurentiis, hawking his 1976 remake of King Kong. Asked why he would be so crass as to remake a film so dear to the hearts of so many moviegoers, Belushi bellowed, “Who cry when Jaws die? Nobody cry! When my Kong die, everybody cry!”
Nobody cried when Dino’s Kong died. But when Peter Jackson’s King Kong takes that final tumble off the top of the Empire State Building—well, have your handkerchief ready.
Prior to seeing the film that is widely expected to rule the box office this holiday season, I felt pretty much the same way as the writers of the Belushi skit, that no possible good was likely to come from trying to redo a film so iconic. There are just some things that all the money and all the talent in the world can’t recapture. Nor was I cheered at learning that Jackson’s version clocked in at three hours and ten minutes. Having avoided most of Jackson’s Rings trilogy (too complicated for my limited attention span), I shuddered to think of all the other filmmakers who crashed and burned when they followed a mammoth hit with an overfunded personal project. (Anyone remember Heaven’s Gate?)
Add to that the list of overwrought remakes of classic monster movies by talented directors who should have known better (Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula, Kenneth Branagh’s Frankenstein, Gus van Sant’s Psycho), and you’ve got precedents for a long, painful evening.
But here’s the thing that becomes clear within a few minutes of this Kong: Jackson really, really loves that 72-year-old film, which despite its limitations to modern eyes maintains a sense of wonder and imagination that continues to enchant new viewers. I imagine that he knows it shot for shot, and that he’s spent years thinking about how he might tweak it. He doesn’t really add much to the story, but he has a sure grasp of where to amplify it.
One scene that Jackson and his cowriters Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens did add is the heart of the movie. (I’m assuming you don’t need me to summarize the rest of the plot.) Alone with the giant gorilla after he has rescued her from becoming a dinosaur canapé, vaudeville actress Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) wonders what is to become of her at the hands of her captor once he recovers from his recent exertions. (A pile of human bones gives her cause to assume the worst.) So she gives him a show: she dances, she tumbles, she juggles. Enjoying the sight of her falling over, he knocks her over with a big finger, at which point she hits him back and says, “No!”
Now she really has his attention. Years of battling for survival have left the big ape scarred and jaded, but here is something pretty and fun that doesn’t merely scream and faint. Having led a hard life herself, Ann recognizes that she has touched a pained soul, and her heart goes out to him.
The measure of Jackson’s success is that he makes this work far better than I could ever explain. His first screenplay, written back in 1996, was, by his own account, “a tongue-in-cheek adventure story, full of gags and one-liners.” A little bit of that remains in small, affectionate ways that pay tribute to the original: a passing mention of Fay Wray as being unavailable for the film; Jackson plays one of the aerial gunners attacking Kong on the Empire State Building, just as director Merian C. Cooper did in his version. (Longtime Jackson fans will also spot a reference to his zombie comedy Braindead in the hold of the ship that sails to Skull Island.) But he rewrote the script after finishing Lord of the Rings, removing the ironic jokes that would only have diluted the story.
King Kong is not without its faults. Casting Jack Black and Adrien Brody against type as the heroes of the adventure has inconsistent results. The threads show in a few of the more ambitious special effect scenes, particularly during a dinosaur stampede where it’s apparent that the actors are running in front of a blue screen. A subplot involving the ship’s first mate and an orphaned young sailor (Billy Elliot’s Jamie Bell) has no function other than to add a poke-in-the-ribs reference to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.
But why carp? Overall, it’s spectacular in just about every way, from the detailed recreation of Depression-era Manhattan to the endless terrors of Skull Island (of which the most horrifying, the insects at the bottom of a chasm where the rescue party tumbles, may be a bit too scary for young children—parents, this might be the time to take the kids on a bathroom break) to the finale atop the Empire State Building that had me literally dizzy with vertigo. Harry who? Chronicles of what? This is the movie on top of the world this holiday season.
|
Issue Navigation> Issue Index > v4n50: Last-Minute Holiday Gift Guide > Film Reviews > Back On Top: King Kong This Week's Issue • Artvoice Daily • Artvoice TV • Events Calendar • Classifieds |
Subscribe 