Silly Little Country

The Lord of the Apes - King Kong

For several years my management has been rewarding its employees with a special day around this time of year featuring a movie showing, usually on the day of its premiere, and before general release, in the morning, and the rest of the day off. The films in the past have usually been Star Trek films, or Bond films - I work among nerds (and am one proudly).
For the last three years it has been "The Lord of the Rings", and this has been tough for me - the first half hour of the first film was lovely - I truly enjoyed the Hobbit world Peter Jackson created. After that it all went to hell for me, turning more or less into a silly video-game full of monsters, with occasional bouts of implausible mythical gorp. The only redemption was in the final episode where Miranda Otto turned up.
So this year's selection of "King Kong" left me in some doubt.
It is done magnificently, though overall it is generally still the sort of thing I don't require to be done. It is a great thing that others do want this sort of film, as this had elements I thought were marvellous.
Jackson knows about movie-making in many ways that matter. I will never forget the opening sequences in "Godfather II", where the Italian New York is created for the young deNiro, and Jackson's opening half hour did somewhat the same thing for me, convincing me I was in New York of the '30s. I confess I found the journey of the ship and its encounter with the rocks compelling as well (and loved Thomas Kretschmann as the captain).
Once we got to the island, in Act 2, we found ourselves back in video-game silliness - I suspect many will enjoy the battle of the stolid ape with three T-Rexes all at once, but this is not my cup of tea; I also found tedious beyond my taste the battles with the insects. The Brontosaurus stampede through the canyon was pretty good but that comes early, before it has all been laid on way too much (for me - my guess is many will find this section the best - the technical elements are unreal). I must say as well that the stupidity of the characters began to wear on me in this act.
And then we were back in New York and I perked up. Even knowing that Naomi Watts would not fall off the Empire State building, I found my palms coated in sweat. It took far too long for things to get resolved but I was never really in painful boredom.
Jackson achieved quite a lovely balance; he left a goofy implausible story in that state. That is the respect it deserved - for example, while it may be implausible to find dinosaurs on an island in the South Pacific, it is no more implausible than Naomi Watts' being able to climb the Empire State Building in those lovely high heels, or her being able to stand up without being hit by major winds up at the top. Jackson does not care and that is right. I must say King Kong's climb up the building appeared to me to defy the laws of physics and that is one of the delights of cheap fiction.
He has a script that leaves a perfect slot for the wonderful Jack Black, and Adrien Brody and Naomi Watts do just what they must do. The script is sly, and amusing, and Jackson gets a chance to "say" many things about film-making and our human love for telling stories and putting on shows for one another.
For people like me I give this about 3 out of 4; my guess, though, is that for many this is 5 out of 4. It is also a film worth seeing in a theatre.

UPDATE: Fun watching the Canada AM review. So the fight with T-Rexes is 20 whole minutes - no wonder it seemed so tedious to me. But I did like the brontosaurus stampede.
And yeah, I did feel for the ape. And the geek reviewer is right that the small plot change, Watts' vaudeville act for the ape, is a vital part of why this thing works. To the degree it does.

UPDATE (Jan 16 2006): P. Z. Myers reviews the film, with a somewhat broader perspective than mine.

posted by Alan Adamson @ 2:42 PM