Actually, Denzel, you ain't got nothing on King Kong

by Christian De Matteo

HUGE

It's 12:59 at night and I am just sitting down to write my review of Peter Jackson's King Kong.

The movie just let out twenty minutes ago.

And I am still in awe.

Peter Jackson could absolutely have bitten down on the high, hard one with this, could have blown it like a drunk hooker, could have choked on it like a chicken bone and convulsed into a miserable death with it.  He could have Shyamalaned himself right into obscurity, you know, three great movies and then a mondo-suckfest.

But no, Peter Jackson has made the Kong that Merian C. Cooper himself  would have made if the technology allowed it.  So loving is Jackson to the original, that never once, in the midst of mindblowing special effects do you get the feeling that he is trying to one-up the original, but rather that he is making sweet love to it, caressing it and encouraging it to be all it can be.  Jackson's Kong, much more than the silly 1976 remake with a beautiful Jessica Lange and The Dude, truly understands what the heart of the story is and makes sure you do too.

Kong is not a action/adventure movie, as the first mate points out to us when Jimmy (Jamie Bell) asks him about Heart of Darkness, but rather a story of human nature, animal nature and the basest of all emotions that drives us all forward.  It is a story of attraction.  It is a romance, a love story, but still it is bigger than love.  It is about animal magnetism and the desire to cherish and protect something just because it makes you feel a little different than you felt before you saw it.  It's about traveling into the Heart of Darkness, and also about the darkest, most secret places of the heart.

But enough about the deeply intellectual and sophisticated aspects of the film, how f**king much does it rock? you're thinking.

Dude, it rocks hard.

The first hour, as my friend Cedric pointed out, mirror the old-fashion set-up of thirties era movies, getting us to know the characters, the story line, and since Jackson has final cut, he devotes plenty of time to getting us to know the whole cast, so that later, when they're being flung all over the freaking place and squashed and such, we feel bad.

Jack Black was the only thing in the movie I was truly worried about.  I like Jack Black a lot, but I didn't see him in this role.  I mean, come on, the last time he did a movie with Colin Hanks (who plays Preston, Denham's right hand man) he was so stoned he lit a college admissions office on fire (Orange County).  How could that fit in a Kong picture?  Well, it wouldn't, Black knew that, and the character he acts is Black serious, still quirky, but a driven, neah, maybe crazed man, so goal-oriented that nothing will stand in his way.

Adrien Brody is not the first mate Jack Driscoll was in the '33 version, but instead a playwright who's earning money by screenwriting for Denham.  We get to know him as the caged writer, an artist not yet fully committed to anything, until he, like the beast, meets the beauty.  While he honestly doesn't have much to do, and we know from other movies that the man's a great actor, what he does do is believable and strong.  He's not the man's man that Bruce Cabot was as Jack Driscoll in '33, but he is a very interesting different version of a man with the same heart and a different life.

And Naomi Watts.  Sweet, merciful heavens, the things I would do to her.  Let me count the ways... oh, sorry, you're still here.  Fay Wray, I think would have liked Watts performance a lot more than Lange's.  While Jessica Lange easily wormed her way into every boys' heart, that banging body begging for close-ups, it was Wray's animal feminity that made Kong's obsession so easy to believe.  Who wouldn't want to swoop her up and take her away from the rest of the world.  I would.  And Watts understands that completely.  I've been a fan of hers for a few movies now, The Ring, 21 Grams, Le Divorce, and Dangerous Beauty, but I never would have seen her in a movie like this.  And boy would I have been wrong not to put her in;  Watts tears up the screen, doing three to seven minute scenes with no dialogue but only acting against a green screen with her face.  She is amazing.

I want to make sure to mention Evan Parke here as well.  His character Hayes as the first mate was terrific.  Playing an important father figure to Jimmy, he pulls up a lot of the emotion of the movie, adding a whole other dimension of love and caring that mirrors, in some ways, Kong's feelings for Ann Darrow.  Wonderful.

It should be mentioned here, also, that the humor in the film is much higher than I would expect.  Jackson, Boyens and Walsh know well that humorous moments make the tense ones all the more intense.

And damn are they ever.  After the introduction of Kong an hour into the movie is a chase scene that had me, literally, more excited than I have ever been in a movie theater.  Despite the snoring little, eight year old bastard in the next aisle, may he grow up with a ringing in his ears that forever makes it impossible for him to enjoy a movie, I was shocked, yes, literally shocked by the sequence.  I honestly don't think any other movie I've ever seen has transported me so deeply into a scene that I literally felt like I too was in danger.  I am saying "literally" a lot here on purpose.  Playing off the audiences inherrent fears of stampeding, panic, heights and claustrophobia (everyone has at least one of these) as the huge brontosaurus squeeze at high speeds into the narrow canyon, velociraptors (I'm sure, somewhere Spielberg has an erection) viciously attack, all the while our heroes run for their lives directly below the stampeding feet of the monsters.  The scene feels like it lasts forever and the intensity is overwhelming.  I really can't even tell you how exciting it is, except that I have never felt anything like it before.

And there's plenty more.  Kong vs. the T-Rex is much more than you were expecting.  The infamous Spider-Pit Sequence is terrifying with a claustrophobic score sucking the very life out of you, as the same thing is happening to some of the characters you love.  The bats are amazing and, before all this, Ann Darrow's terrible jaunt through the jungle in the paw of a rampaging Kong will leave you dizzy.

Holy crap, what a movie!  And we still haven't gotten to New York, where more thrills await and Jackson officially gives us the definitive Empire State Building sequence.

The movie is amazing, astounding and truly a feat unto itself. 

Jackson's Kong is, by itself, the eighth wonder of the world.

Well played, Mr. Jackson.  And yes, I will be back for seconds. 

By Edwin Hopkins
Email Mr. Hopkins

HUGE

Peter Jackson simply couldn’t get The Lord of the Rings out of his system as far as running time was concerned for his glorious remake of a celebrated 1933 classic. Clocking in at 3 hours and 7 minutes with a budget north of 200 million dollars, King

Jackson’s co-writing compadres, Fran Walsh and Phillipa Bowens stick close to the original material adding a few exciting attractions which I won’t spoil by telling you. I will say there is more of a back story behind Carl Denham, Jack Driscoll is not the first mate of the Venture and Ann Darrow is not totally helpless and terrified of Kong.
Carl Denham (Jack Black) is a consecrated showman ready to risk his very life ( and others) to make a name for himself in Hollywood. He procures a map giving the location of an uncharted island where he wants to shoot his latest picture. The theme- Beauty and the Beast. His screenwriter, popular playwright Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody) has already submitted a script. All he needs now is a leading lady. Enter out of work actress Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) and with a little desperate finagling, Carl manages to depart with her, cast and crew on the Venture just before his production financiers can stop him at the docks.

Comparing love interests, Jeff Bridges was far better looking than Adrien Brody and I believe, although Brody renders a top-notch performance, Jackson could’ve chosen a better looking actor for Watts. It was the flip side of the Joan Allen- John Travolta match-up in Face/Off. However, this is aptly compensated by a solid script and character development so prevalent in the Rings trilogy.

Anyone who has seen either of the previous adaptations of Kong already knows how it ends. Jackson merely takes a little longer to tell the story. It may seem to bog down during the first 45 minutes, but things relay so quickly upon reaching the island, that you won’t notice running time at all, until it’s over.

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Rating

  COMMENTARY

   Ragin Cajun:

HUGE (Star: Jack Black) This Movie is Great. Peter Jackson is a Genius. This is one of the best movies my eyes have ever laid on. He did the most wonderful job on this film. He deserves 5 emmys for it.

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King Kong 1933 version Collector's Edition DVD set in Metal Box is an absolute Must Have for any serious film buff's DVD Collection!

 Peter Jackson has done it again.  And I’m not talking about the 2005 King Kong remake, I’m talking about the great DVD Collector's Edition DVD set of the original 1933 release. 

This is something you'll hear more about if you're smart enough to purchase this DVD collection.  It seems that 2005 is not the only time in history when, in this free country of ours, the thought police - the elitist fascists that they are - who think that Freedom means that the public is free to thing and see and hear only what they (our benevolent betters) deem correct.  Well, it seems that when the film was re-released in 1939, they felt that the US of A was too civilized to see some of the footage in the original film, so they cut, what turns out to be some great scenes from the film. 

 Luckily a copy of the 1933 film was found in Brittan, untouched by our betters.  And that is what you will own when you purchase this DVD set; and you will if you have any sense.  The quality is incredible, the film is so enjoyable and exciting.  Personally it brings back memories of my first viewings of the film, which was back in the 1950s (yes, I'm old). 

Jackson has obviously had his hand in so much more than just remaking the groundbreaking film.  Yes.  It was groundbreaking.  the documentaries included in the collection pays tribute to the inventiveness of the filmmakers of 75 years ago.  Those filmmakers, Cooper, Schoedsack, O'Biren, Steiner, Spivack, to name a few, created the foundation for the wonders that we see in modern movies.  

RKO PRODUCTION 601: THE MAKING OF KONG, EIGHTH WONDER OF THE WORLD is an especially interesting production.  This section of Disc Two has the seven part documentary as well as THE LOST SPIDER PIT SEQUENCE, (in which you will happily learn that Peter Jackson, and the other passionate filmmakers in his team, remade this lost sequence in the exact method of the original film) and Creation Test Footage with commentary by Ray Harryhwusen (Producer, Visual Effects, Director, Actor, Special Effects, Writer and Cinematographer).

I'm King Kong!  The exploits of Merian C. Cooper is a bio of one of a most interesting man.  Yes, he is the man behind King Kong, but he was also a flying Ace in World War I and II, a Hollywood Mogul, an adventurer and much more.  You will be amazed at what one man can accomplish, creatively and otherwise, in his life, a man you probably never heard of.

Disc One has the wonderful movie, as well as a commentary by visual effects veterans Ray Harryhausen and Ken Folston.  There are interpolated interview excerpts of Merian Cooper and Fay Wray, and Movie Trailer Gallery of Mr. Cooper's films.

The set also has a great reproduction of the Grauman's Chinese Theatre booklet dated Friday Evening, March 24, 1933; a booklet of 5 King Kong movie posters, and an order form to get a free 27" x 40" reproduction of THE original King Kong Movie poster.

Movie lovers, this is a piece of movie history, and a college course in filmmaking that you can own.  You should get it.

Joe De Matteo