Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Old Kong
How do I explain my feelings about Peter Jackson’s King Kong?
It is unarguably a great movie. The acting, story and special effects are seamless and awe inspiring. I could quibble that it is too long. Others have and they have a point. Yes it is melodrama building to refrain from revealing the Big Ape for an hour an a half. It isn’t that the first hour and a half isn’t interesting. I do believe that the entire story arc built in that time could have been built in less to greater effect. This is why I’m a critic and not making movies I’m sure.
There’s an awful lot going on in King Kong. What starts as a treatise on the effects of the Depression on the entertainment industry suddenly morphs into the scariest most thrilling dinosaur movie since Jurassic Park. And the bugs! Don’t even get me started about the horrible giant bugs that will haunt my dreams FOREVER Peter Jackson! You remember the second Indiana Jones movie? You wont after you see King Kong. Piffle are what those bugs are compared to these…a walk in a (somewhat dark, dank and creepy) park.
Before we get to enjoy the island of legitimately scary dinosaurs, we must endure an awkward and embarrassing visit to bone-through-the-nose scary natives land. I’d take some time here to scold about abuse of stereotypes but I’m not sure who exactly Jackson might be stereotyping. It’s like those car insurance ads that make fun of cave men, resulting in an embarrassed company representative attempting to make reparations to angry and organized Neanderthals. Several decades of indoctrination in the school of Political Correctness make me positive I should be offended. I’m just not sure on behalf of whom.
In the interest of addressing this philosophical conundrum, I tried to imagine how you would make King Kong without the morally troubling visit to native sacrifice land, but I can’t think of one. This is why I’m a critic and not making movies I’m sure. It did lead me to wonder about the population of King Kong Island though. Their primary industry appears to be the construction of scaffolding. They clearly have the technology to build a big freaking door which is strong enough to withstand dinosaur and giant ape attack, and of course the Giant Virgin Sacrifice Delivery Lever. So I have to wonder why not put that creative energy to use to invent, say, a boat to take themselves off the island with the dinosaurs and the bugs and the really big monkey that doesn’t seem to care for them?
All of this and we haven’t even met the title character yet. It may take us over an hour before we meet Mr. Kong, but when he arrives he seizes the movie in his big hairy mitts and waltzes away with it. Whatever criticism I may have about the movie let me make it absolutely clear that the ape is a triumph. He is real. I’d like to differentiate here between ‘realistic’ and ‘real’. Realistic still implies some element of unreality. Jackson and Andrew Sirkis have created a living, breathing, feeling character. King Kong is the heart of the movie. He is also, in my opinion, the movie’s Achilles Heel.
King Kong has been remade more than once. Every version has one thing in common. (Warning: spoiler alert) At the end, the gorilla dies. He is wrested from his island, a place where he already had no easy life to begin with, with the dinosaurs and the bugs…did I mention the bugs…and the ape-hating people. He is hauled to a big cold city, put on cruel display, escapes to find the only kind person he has ever known and is hounded to the top of a building where he dies. The main difference in this version is that before he does all of this, or perhaps while he does all of this, I totally fell in love with the big hairy lug. Somewhere around the time they capture him, ending with a long focus on Naomi Watts sobbing her broken heart out, I started to get a really sinking feeling in my stomach. Jackson has taken an early cinematic inspiration for Godzilla movies and turned it into Old Yeller, complete with tears.
It did occur to me that this movie could easily inspire generations of animal rights activists. What Charlotte’s Web did for vegetarians, what Watership Down did for lab animals, King Kong may do for gorilla rights. Go ahead and laugh at my crazy idea, then watch Kong watch the sun set with Naomi Watts. Feel like that trip to the zoo now? 100 years from now, when the Simian Liberation Front elects a gorilla for president, don't say I didn't warn you.
It is unarguably a great movie. The acting, story and special effects are seamless and awe inspiring. I could quibble that it is too long. Others have and they have a point. Yes it is melodrama building to refrain from revealing the Big Ape for an hour an a half. It isn’t that the first hour and a half isn’t interesting. I do believe that the entire story arc built in that time could have been built in less to greater effect. This is why I’m a critic and not making movies I’m sure.
There’s an awful lot going on in King Kong. What starts as a treatise on the effects of the Depression on the entertainment industry suddenly morphs into the scariest most thrilling dinosaur movie since Jurassic Park. And the bugs! Don’t even get me started about the horrible giant bugs that will haunt my dreams FOREVER Peter Jackson! You remember the second Indiana Jones movie? You wont after you see King Kong. Piffle are what those bugs are compared to these…a walk in a (somewhat dark, dank and creepy) park.
Before we get to enjoy the island of legitimately scary dinosaurs, we must endure an awkward and embarrassing visit to bone-through-the-nose scary natives land. I’d take some time here to scold about abuse of stereotypes but I’m not sure who exactly Jackson might be stereotyping. It’s like those car insurance ads that make fun of cave men, resulting in an embarrassed company representative attempting to make reparations to angry and organized Neanderthals. Several decades of indoctrination in the school of Political Correctness make me positive I should be offended. I’m just not sure on behalf of whom.
In the interest of addressing this philosophical conundrum, I tried to imagine how you would make King Kong without the morally troubling visit to native sacrifice land, but I can’t think of one. This is why I’m a critic and not making movies I’m sure. It did lead me to wonder about the population of King Kong Island though. Their primary industry appears to be the construction of scaffolding. They clearly have the technology to build a big freaking door which is strong enough to withstand dinosaur and giant ape attack, and of course the Giant Virgin Sacrifice Delivery Lever. So I have to wonder why not put that creative energy to use to invent, say, a boat to take themselves off the island with the dinosaurs and the bugs and the really big monkey that doesn’t seem to care for them?
All of this and we haven’t even met the title character yet. It may take us over an hour before we meet Mr. Kong, but when he arrives he seizes the movie in his big hairy mitts and waltzes away with it. Whatever criticism I may have about the movie let me make it absolutely clear that the ape is a triumph. He is real. I’d like to differentiate here between ‘realistic’ and ‘real’. Realistic still implies some element of unreality. Jackson and Andrew Sirkis have created a living, breathing, feeling character. King Kong is the heart of the movie. He is also, in my opinion, the movie’s Achilles Heel.
King Kong has been remade more than once. Every version has one thing in common. (Warning: spoiler alert) At the end, the gorilla dies. He is wrested from his island, a place where he already had no easy life to begin with, with the dinosaurs and the bugs…did I mention the bugs…and the ape-hating people. He is hauled to a big cold city, put on cruel display, escapes to find the only kind person he has ever known and is hounded to the top of a building where he dies. The main difference in this version is that before he does all of this, or perhaps while he does all of this, I totally fell in love with the big hairy lug. Somewhere around the time they capture him, ending with a long focus on Naomi Watts sobbing her broken heart out, I started to get a really sinking feeling in my stomach. Jackson has taken an early cinematic inspiration for Godzilla movies and turned it into Old Yeller, complete with tears.
It did occur to me that this movie could easily inspire generations of animal rights activists. What Charlotte’s Web did for vegetarians, what Watership Down did for lab animals, King Kong may do for gorilla rights. Go ahead and laugh at my crazy idea, then watch Kong watch the sun set with Naomi Watts. Feel like that trip to the zoo now? 100 years from now, when the Simian Liberation Front elects a gorilla for president, don't say I didn't warn you.
