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King Kong December 14, 2005 |
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The 1933 “King Kong” was one of the most important films of its day, a landmark in adventure filmmaking and stop motion puppeteering that fueled an audience beaten up by the Great Depression with imagination, horror, and wonder. To say that it needed to be remade, again, following a successful re-introduction into the general film consciousness on DVD earlier this month, would sound crazy, like poking a sleeping beast with some kind of expensive, newfangled computer generated stick, and normally I would agree, but after seeing what Peter Jackson and his crew of technology savvy wizards at New Zealand’s WETA workshop have done to the 72 year old story, fleshing it out with state of the art effect, and characterizations, both human and simian, that finally get to the heart of the stereotypical original characters, I’d have to say that for the first time in a long time, I’m not cringing at the thought of a remade classic. Actually, I’m jumping for joy, because not only has Jackson, the genius behind “The Lord of the Rings”, made an epic worthy of its famous forefather, he’s done it in a most loving way, as an homage that never surpasses the original for inventiveness (Jackson would never even suggest he’s outsmarted his favorite film), but utilizes modern technology in the same ground breaking way Willis O’Brien, Merian C. Cooper, and Ernest B. Schoedsack did in ’33, by attacking their new tools with exhaustive determination to produce something spectacular, but beyond mere spectacle, and the results are appropriately beautiful and stunning. Nothing can ever take away the charms and thrills of the original 100 minute masterpiece, and for my money it’ll always be one of those great old dinosaurs that continually pops into my life to remind me of Hollywood progress in its Golden Age of reform, after the initial years of talking cinema pretty much killed off film artistry for five years, but now, like a grandson taking over rein of his retired grandfather’s bait and tackle shop, Peter Jackson’s “King Kong”, a three-hour behemoth that totally changes the way we look at blockbuster, big budget filmmaking, or at least continuing the tradition set by the ‘Rings’ trilogy, is the Chairman (Chair-ape?) of the Kong franchise, and it’s a prestigious position indeed. Jackson sets his loving remake in 1933, the year of the original, where the Great Depression has got New York in tatters; breadlines are long, shanty towns are aplenty, and poverty row off-off Broadway Vaudeville acts, staring poor actresses like Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts), are shutting down by the day. Belts are tight, and wallets are tighter everywhere, even in Manhattan screening rooms, where Carl Denham (Jack Black) is screening footage of his latest adventure picture, a film that the producers want nothing to do with, let alone to bankroll Denham’s voyage to an uncharted island that is, as he says, “a primitive world, never seen by man, the ruins of an entire civilization.” Sounds interesting, but the producers want nothing more than romance, a little adventure, and lots of skin, so fearing the worst, Denham steals his five reels of footage from the annoyed money men, picks up the starving Ann along the way (“you must be the saddest girl I’ve ever seen”) to star in his picture as the heroine, and sets sail on the Venture with a grizzly crew of seamen, along with the film’s writer, Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody), who have no clue as to the severity of Denham’s dangerous, half baked, insane quest. “For twenty-five cents,” he says to his skeptical assistant Preston (Colin Hanks), pitching his scheme, “you’ll get to see the last blank space on the map.” The set-up to the sea voyage, and eventual shipwreck at the great stone wall of Skull Island (a beastly jungle that makes the spooky island on “Lost” look like what it is, a Hawaiian paradise), is longer, and more interesting than the stiff first 20 minutes of the original, but when the natives – creepy, murderous tribesmen chanting “Kong, Kong, Kong” over and over with a look of desperation and madness in their red eyes – kidnap Ann to sacrifice to the unseen 25 foot giant silverback gorilla, the two films, old and new, begin to merge, with the latter enhancing upon ideas, and creations, originally impossible to perfect in 1933, creating an homage by filling in the blanks. For instance, in the original, the sailors get trapped in a spider pit after Kong throws them off of a gigantic log while trying to rescue Ann, a sequence that was filmed but lost to history (a Jackson commissioned recreation can be found on the DVD), because it was thought too scary, but now Jackson not only includes the sequence, he amps it up with squirm-inducing bugs and man-eating slugs, for a scene that is altogether fascinating and oddly disturbing, an instance where Jackson, as admirer, is using his considerable means to finish, for the benefit of his own film, what was never able to be completely said in 1933. It’s a masterful bit of horror, drawing upon our own phobias of all things slimy and 20-legged, but it’s also a prime homage from a smart director who knows when to reign in it, and never flaunt his impressive technology over the ancient, near lost art of stop motion animation. The famed spider pit sequence in Jackson’s film may be the best example of how the director is paying respect to the classic by essentially beefing it up with newfound technology, but it’s not the only example; from the first encounter with grazing brontosauruses, to Kong’s epic fight with three T-Rex’s, and his final climb up the gloriously re-created Empire State Building, shielding Ann from the wickedness of modern man, the film is filled with hyper, mega-vignettes that fleshes out a 100-minute story into a breezy, never boring 180-minute jewel. It was always implied that the giant gorilla fell in love with Ann because she was a sexy dish (indeed, Fay Wray oozes sex appeal in her half naked, scream fest of a performance in the original), but here the adaptation adds depth to the relationship, as if Kong, used to only the bare necessities of life, like stripping down bamboo and drop kicking dinosaurs for survival, is enchanted by the blonde beauty simply because he needs something to protect other than himself. As King of the jungle, male dominance is a must, but on Skull Island, filled with vampire bats, gnarling dinosaurs, and creepy giant bugs, Kong only gets to demonstrate his superiority to his felled opponents, but when the fragile Ann is offered up to him as a sacrifice, he is charmed by her helplessness, and likewise, when he saves her from becoming a T-Rex’s next meal, she looks upon him not as a monster, but as a savior, a misunderstood beast of burden. There are scenes of incredible tenderness as Kong wistfully looks after Ann (a sunset scene is beautiful enough to render tears), and pathos when Denham eventually captures the ape with chloroform and shackles him off to Broadway where, well, you know what happens then, as the film becomes a study of man vs. animal, man’s pesky habit of shooting first and judging later, and animal’s unfortunate position as man’s put upon subordinate. When Kong kidnaps Ann and climbs the skyscraper it’s to protect her from man’s guns, and in doing so, cornering and dooming himself, he’s made the ultimate sacrifice for devotion and love, his life for hers, and at that, the film turns tragic, the final piece in an epic puzzle that has it all, from comedy and adventure, to romance, madness, irony, and ultimately, painful tragedy. It may not be Shakespeare, but if Shakespeare had giant apes and gunner airplanes, it would look something like this. Peter Jackson is the best big budget filmmaker on the planet, and his “King Kong”, a masterpiece in its own right, is the most eye-popping blockbuster of the season, with one impressive set piece after another. The moody early Skull Island scenes give way to brilliantly realized dinosaur chase scenes (the brontosaurus stampede is breathtakingly exciting) and the deep horror of the spider pit sequence, while the dizzying New York scenes, complete with a painstaking digital reconstruction of 1930’s Times Square, offers a climax as dazzling to look at as it is tragic to behold. The beauty of the film is that Jackson is able to render such emotion out of the unusual girl/ape relationship (thanks in no small part to Naomi Watts and her gorgeous big blue eyes, and the motion capture performance of Jackson favorite Andy Serkis as Kong), while presenting almost non-stop action that is, at times, as overwhelming as it is technically masterful. As homage to a classic, “King Kong” couldn’t have come out more respectful and loving (Cooper and Wray even get their due in one funny in-joke that purists will catch in a heartbeat), but as heartfelt tragedy mixed with pure spectacle, it’s the damndest thing, a blockbuster with a heart of gold, and in this age of mindless effects epics, that’s about as priceless as it gets. All hail Kong, the Eighth Wonder of the World, and all hail Peter Jackson’s impressive “King Kong”, one of the greatest action films since Merian C. Cooper reinvented the genre lo those many years ago. “King Kong” is playing at the Movie-Plex 59. by Adam Suraf
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