King Kong (2005)

Now it’s time to wrap up the King Kong movies with the 2005 Peter Jackson remake, “King Kong.” There are amazements to see in this movie, but one sequence, fairly controlled, holds the key to the movie’s success. Kong has captured Ann Darrow and carried her to his land high on the mountain. He puts her down, not roughly, and then starts to roar, bare his teeth and beat his chest, Ann, an unemployed vaudeville gymnast, somehow automatically knows that the gorilla is not threatening her buy trying to impress her by behaving as an alpha male – the King of the Jungle. She doesn’t know how Queen Kong would respond, but she does what she can: Roger Ebert said, “She goes into her stage routine, doing backflips, dancing like Chaplin, juggling three stones.”

Her instincts and compassion serve her well. Kong’s eyes widen in curiosity, wonder and finally what may pass her enjoyment. From then on, he thinks of himself as the girl’s owner and protector. Ebert describes her as “a tiny beautiful toy that he has been given for his very own, and before long, they are regarding the sunset together, both of them silenced by its majesty.”

The scene is important because it takes out the element of scariness in the gorilla/girl relationship in the two earlier “Kong” movies (1933 and 1976), creating a wordless bond that allows her to trust him. When Jack Driscoll climbs the mountain to rescue her, he finds her comfortably huddled in Kong’s big palm. Ann and Kong in this movie will be threatened by dinosaurs, man-eating worms, giant bats, loathsome insects, spiders, machine-guns and the Army Air Corps, and could fall to their death into gaps on Skull Island or from the Empire State Building. However, Ann will be as safe as Kong can make her, and he will protect her even from her own kind.

The movie more or less faithfully follows the summarizes of the original film, but this fundamental change in the relationship between the beauty and the beast gives it heart, a quality the earlier film was lacking. Yes, Kong in 1933 cares for his hostage, but she doesn’t care so much for him. Kong was always misunderstood, but in the 2005 film, there is someone who knows it.

As Kong climbs the skyscraper, Ann screams “don’t” because of the gorilla, but because of the attacks on the gorilla by a society that guesses he must be destroyed. Ebert comments, “The movie makes the same kind of shift involving a giant gorilla that Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (1977) did when he replaced 1950s attacks on alien visitors with a very 1970s attempt to communicate with them (by 2005, Spielberg was back to attacking them, in "War of the Worlds").”

“King Kong” is a magnificent entertainment. Ebert mentioned, “It is like the flowering of all the possibilities in the original classic film.” Computers are used not only to create special effects, but also to create style and beauty, to find a look for the film that fits its story. Also, the characters are not cardboard heroes or villains seen in harsh outline, but original individuals with personalities.

Look at the difference between Robert Armstrong (1993) and comedian and musician Jack Black (2005) as Carl Denham, the movie director who lands a naive crew on Skull Island. Ebert commented, “Hollywood stereotype based on Cecil B. DeMille has been replaced by one who reminds us more of Orson Welles.” Also, in the starring role of Ann Darrow, the hot Naomi Watts expresses a variety of emotion that Fay Wray, rest her soul, was never allowed in 1933. Never have damsels been in more distress, but Fay Wray mostly had to scream, while Watts looks into the gorilla’s eyes and sees something beautiful there.

Ebert mentioned that:

There was a stir when Jackson informed the home office that his movie would run 187 minutes. The executives had something around 140 minutes in mind, so they could turn over the audience more quickly (despite the greedy 20 minutes of paid commercials audiences now have inflicted upon them). After they saw the movie, their objections were stilled. Yes, the movie is a tad too long, and we could do without a few of the monsters and overturned elevated trains. But it is so well done that we are complaining, really, only about too much of a good thing. This is one of the great modern epics.

Jackson, fresh from his “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, cleverly doesn’t show the gorilla or the other creatures until more than an hour into the movie. In this he follows Spielberg, who fought off producers who wanted the shark in “Jaws” to appear nearly in the opening titles. Ebert mentioned, “There is an hour of anticipation, of low ominous music, of subtle rumblings, of uneasy squints into the fog and mutinous grumblings from the crew, before the tramp steamer arrives at Skull Island -- or, more accurately, is thrown against its jagged rocks in the first of many scary action sequences.”

During that time, we see Depression-era breadlines and soup kitchens, and meet the unemployed protagonists of the film: Ann Darrow, whose vaudeville theater has closed, and who is faced with humiliating herself in mockery; Carl Denham, whose footage for a new movie is so unconvincing that the movie’s promoters want to sell it off as background footage; Jack Driscoll, played by Adrien Brother, a playwright whose dreams lie Off-Broadway and who desires 15 pages of a first draft screenplay at Denham and tries to disappear.

Everyone find themselves aboard the tramp steamer of Captain Englehorn, played by Thomas Kretschmann, who is persuaded to sail off just as Denham’s creditors arrive on the docks in police cars. They set course for the South Seas, where Denham believes an uncharted island may hold the secret of a box office blockbuster. On board, Ann and Jack grow close, but not too close, because the movie’s real love story is between the girl and the gorilla.

Ebert mentioned, “Once on Skull Island, the second act of the movie is mostly a series of hair-curling special effects, as overgrown prehistoric creatures endlessly pursue the humans, occasionally killing or eating a supporting character.” The bridges and logs over gorges, so important in 1933, are even better used here, especially when a variety of humans and creatures fall in phases from a great height, continuing their deadly struggle whenever they can grab a convenient vine, rock or tree. Two story lines are intercut: Ann and the ape, and everybody else and the other creatures.

The third act returns to Manhattan, which looks strangely reminiscent and atmospheric. It isn’t precisely realistic, but more of a dreamed city where key elements mix in and out of view. There’s poetic moment where Kong and the girl find a frozen pond in Central Park, and the gorilla is lost in happiness as it slides on the ice. It’s in scenes like this that Andy Serkis is most useful as the actor who doesn’t so much play Kong as represent him for the Special Effects team. He adds the body language.

Some of the Manhattan effects are not completely convincing (and earlier, on Skull Island, it’s strange how the escaping humans seem to run beneath the beating feet of the T-Rexes without quite occupying the same space). However, special effects do not need to be convincing if they are effective, and Jackson trades a little practicality, for a lot of collision and energy. The final climb of the Empire State Building is magnificent, and for once, the gorilla seems the same size in every shot.

Although Naomi Watts makes a wonderful heroine, there have been complains that Jack Black and Adrien Brody are not precisely hero material. Ebert commented, “Nor should they be, in my opinion. They are a director and a writer. They do not require big muscles and square jaws. What they require are strong personalities that can be transformed under stress.” Denham the director grips to a great extent to his camera, no matter what happens to him, and Driscoll the writer beats a planned escape before basically rewriting his personal role in his own mind. Bruce Baxter, played by Kyle Chandler, is an actor who plays the movie’s hero, and now has to decide if he can play his role realistically. Also, Preston, played by Colin Hanks, is a production assistant who, as is often the case, would be a hero if anybody would give him a chance.

The result is a surprisingly involving and rather beautiful – one that will demand strongly to the primary action audience, and also cross over to people who have no plans to see “King Kong” but will change their minds the more they hear. Ebert said, “I think the film even has a message, and it isn't that beauty killed the beast. It's that we feel threatened by beauty, especially when it overwhelms us, and we pay a terrible price when we try to deny its essential nature and turn it into a product, or a target.” This was one of 2005’s best films.

In the end, I would have to say that while I really liked this movie, the 1933 movie is better. Simply put, that movie was quick and went straight to the point. In this remake, we spent way too much time on the boat and Adrien Brody was just a bore. However, that’s not to say that it takes away from the movie, as I do think it’s faithful to the original compared to the 1976 movie. Final verdict: do check this film out, but do bear in mind the length of the movie. You’ll like it, but if you prefer this one over the 1933, then that’s fine, but if you prefer the 1933, I’m in the same boat with you.

We are not done with the ape movies yet. There are still two more that I want to cover. What are they you ask? Stay tuned tomorrow to find out in “Halloween Month.”