Peter Jackson's King Kong will take you on a breathless ride
once the ride begins an hour or so into the three hour movie. With three distinctive parts, Jackson applies the trilogy structure that made him millions upon millions with the Lord of the Rings series. The first part of the film is a largely light-hearted hour of character development and plot establishment which only gets us to Skull Island. All that light-heartiness is immediately squashed in the second part of the film as the cast of characters makes their way onto the island confronting the most creepy of natives, fearsome dinosaurs and King Kong himself. This heart racing, anxiety ridden section is Indiana Jones meets Jurassic Park in the most action-packed 75 minutes you may ever experience. Critically, while on the island, Jackson lays the foundation for the love affair between the beauty and the beast. The final part of the film, the shortest piece of the all-in-one trilogy, takes place in New York and masterfully transitions the film a second time into a pure tragedy of seemingly Shakespearean proportions.
King Kong presents Naomi Watts as we have never seen her before on the big screen. She is stunningly beautiful as Ann Darrow and strikes just the right poses to remind us of dear Fay Ray and other leading ladies of that bygone era. While I thought she was brilliant in the likes of 21 Grams and We Don't Live Here Anymore, my guess is that those dark roles for her may now take a back seat to more main stream Hollywood feature roles, which is unfortunate. I was surprised to see the often silly Jack Black cast as film maker Karl Denham, but he somehow pulls off the role with increasing seriousness as the film rolls on. Adrian Brody is perfectly cast in the supporting role of playwright, Jack Driscoll, the unsung hero of the story.
Jackson's film pays homage to Merian C. Cooper's original version made in 1933. The colorization technique Jackson uses gives an antique feel to the film that reminds of the black and white film era. He stays true to much of the original costumes and even the cast has striking similarity to the original cast. More especially, Jackson preserves many of the scenes and dialog of the original film. Especially notable is the replication of the last line of the film as delivered by Denham, "it was beauty that killed the beast." Unlike the original, Darrow reciprocates the affection that Kong has for her and in doing so Jackson creates a remarkably believable love affair between the beauty and the beast. The affinity between the beauty and the beast is perhaps Jackson's greatest contribution to the film. It is so unlikely, yet so believable that by the end of the film Kong becomes our tragic hero. Jackson plays on this accomplishment by drawing out the final scenes from atop the Empire State Building to perhaps three times the length of the original. These scenes are a triumph for Jackson. The animation is dizzying, the emotion between Devon and Kong is genuine and our sympathy for Kong is real. Though scarcely any dialog whatsoever, we watch in captivated silence at the last precious moments of a heroine with her savior.
Although I believe that Jackson's success on creating the love affair between Darrow and Kong makes his work superior to the 1933 version, I prefer the pace of the original film which is less than two hours. Cooper's version of the film gets us straightaway onto the ship and it's not so long until we are on the island. Little is gained by Jackson's almost movie length first hour intro. Additionally Jackson's 75 minute wild adventure on Skull Island leaves us a little too worn out to truly appreciate the true masterpiece of this film which is the last half hour. One wonders what really would have been lost if the first section were cut by twenty minutes and the second by fifteen versus what would have been gained by maintaining the pace of the original. But if you have an extra 35 minutes, this film is not to be missed.
7.7 recommended
King Kong presents Naomi Watts as we have never seen her before on the big screen. She is stunningly beautiful as Ann Darrow and strikes just the right poses to remind us of dear Fay Ray and other leading ladies of that bygone era. While I thought she was brilliant in the likes of 21 Grams and We Don't Live Here Anymore, my guess is that those dark roles for her may now take a back seat to more main stream Hollywood feature roles, which is unfortunate. I was surprised to see the often silly Jack Black cast as film maker Karl Denham, but he somehow pulls off the role with increasing seriousness as the film rolls on. Adrian Brody is perfectly cast in the supporting role of playwright, Jack Driscoll, the unsung hero of the story.
Jackson's film pays homage to Merian C. Cooper's original version made in 1933. The colorization technique Jackson uses gives an antique feel to the film that reminds of the black and white film era. He stays true to much of the original costumes and even the cast has striking similarity to the original cast. More especially, Jackson preserves many of the scenes and dialog of the original film. Especially notable is the replication of the last line of the film as delivered by Denham, "it was beauty that killed the beast." Unlike the original, Darrow reciprocates the affection that Kong has for her and in doing so Jackson creates a remarkably believable love affair between the beauty and the beast. The affinity between the beauty and the beast is perhaps Jackson's greatest contribution to the film. It is so unlikely, yet so believable that by the end of the film Kong becomes our tragic hero. Jackson plays on this accomplishment by drawing out the final scenes from atop the Empire State Building to perhaps three times the length of the original. These scenes are a triumph for Jackson. The animation is dizzying, the emotion between Devon and Kong is genuine and our sympathy for Kong is real. Though scarcely any dialog whatsoever, we watch in captivated silence at the last precious moments of a heroine with her savior.
Although I believe that Jackson's success on creating the love affair between Darrow and Kong makes his work superior to the 1933 version, I prefer the pace of the original film which is less than two hours. Cooper's version of the film gets us straightaway onto the ship and it's not so long until we are on the island. Little is gained by Jackson's almost movie length first hour intro. Additionally Jackson's 75 minute wild adventure on Skull Island leaves us a little too worn out to truly appreciate the true masterpiece of this film which is the last half hour. One wonders what really would have been lost if the first section were cut by twenty minutes and the second by fifteen versus what would have been gained by maintaining the pace of the original. But if you have an extra 35 minutes, this film is not to be missed.
7.7 recommended