Depression-ridden New York in the 1920s: The unsuccessful movie director Carl Denham gets the plug pulled on his new film by the studio, his lead actress walks out on him, and he’s got an arrest warrant on his head for stealing film production gadgets and material. While Denham prepares to set out for an uncharted island where he plans to shoot his picture, he finds a new starlet in the desperate stage performer Ann Darrow. Along with the screenwriter Jack Driscoll and the hardened sea-crew of the Venture, they discover the mysterious Skull Island, where a tribe of natives has errected an immense wall to guard their part of the island against the horrors on the other side, one of which is the mighty King Kong. And the giant gorilla’s latest sacrifice, a female human, is overdue.

Director Peter Jackson has fought for almost a decade to create a remake of one of film’s earliest classics (the original King Kong, by Merian C. Cooper, dates back to 1933). Only after the uncompared success of his The Lord of the Rings trilogy, with virtually every studio at his feet, was Jackson granted his wish. Keeping together his award-winning film crew from the fantasy epic, Jackson undertook the delicate mission of reviving his greatest film inspiration on the big screen, for an audience not exactly lacking almost unimaginable movie tales with unthinkable special effects. Also, King Kong is not a film yearning for an update, having no apparent ties (literal, symbolical, allegorical or moral) to the world today, over 80 years after the original graced the screen and revolutionized special effects trickery.

Peter Jackson has thus wisely decided to keep the story nested in the 1920s, as opposed to bringing it forward to a more contemporary surrounding. Compared with Cooper’s original though, Jackson’s film runs for just about twice the length! So unlike Gus van Sant’s Psycho for instance, which was a one-to-one remake of the Hitchcock classic, Jackson opts to expand on scenes and add new ones. One of these is obvious enough to understand: in 1933, no one needed to be introduced to the time of the depression; Jackson however rightly spends time depicting the poverty and desperation writhing through New York.

Jackson’s elaborate exposition is a two-edged blade: supporting characters such as Hayes (Evan Parke) and Jimmy (Jamie Bell) are dedicated quite a remarkable amount of screen time, only to be left out completely at the end of the film, leaving their characters hanging in the air. Jack Driscoll’s character is split up into three compared with the original: Captain Englehorn (Thomas Kretschmann), the actor Bruce Baxter (Kyle Chandler) and the playwriter Jack Driscoll (who keeps the name and the characters affection for Ann Darrow). It is the writer’s character arc that comes across the most satisfying, justifying his extensive exposition.

While the film comes across as somewhat off-beat and unsure of itself while in New York and on the Venture ship, it picks up pace and excitement once the crew arrives on Skull Island. Dazzling visuals, bristling sounds effects, atmospheric direction: everything comes together here. The tribe of natives and their primitive ritual is eerie, the witch is especially frightening. It is on Skull Island where Jackson’s love for the gruesome, the showcasing of which is his greatest strength, becomes apparent. The menacing creatures are horrifying to behold, and parts of the audience will involuntarily feel the need to look away and/or scream out in disgust during certain scenes.

The effects company WETA seems to have perfectly captured Jackson’s imaginations on screen. This also applies to the Dinosaurs roaming Skull Island. The visual effects work here is (mostly) great and the action breathtaking, but scenes such as the Brontosaurus chase feel overly long. The same problem manifests itself in Kong’s fight with the (three) Tyrannosauruses - a visual highlight of the film, yes - where the tension peaks over and over again, finding almost to no end. You can’t help but feel Jackson was compelled to show off WETA’s skill. And partly, you can’t really blame him for that, because the effects work, particularly on King Kong himself, is awe-inspiring.

King Kong is perfectly animated, his hair react to every tiny gust of wind, his eyes are deep and forlorn, his scars speak of a life of hardship and strife, and his movement is exactly that of any gorilla we’ve seen in zoos or documentaries: natural. Kong is never antropomorphisized, he never stops being a primitive animal driven by instincts, and yet his character is loveable. The film’s greatest strength is that it’s big and hairy main character resonates with the audience. And this is in no small part due to the ape’s chemistry with Ann.

Naomi Watts’ Ann Darrow is very different from Fay Wray’s legendary character. She is no longer the damsel in distress, but can take care of herself (within a reasonable frame of action), is feisty and smart, active and caring. When Ann imitates her stage performances in front of Kong in order to calm him (another of the film’s strongest moments), his reactions, from laughing to scowling to joining in on the play, and their interactions, the way they play off eachother, is astoundingly fun and sympathetic.

Much more than in the original, the relationship between Kong and Ann is two-sided. Where Kong slaughtered all previously sacrificied women (Jackson hints at this by showing their bony remains at one of Kong’s resting places), he is protective of Ann, the girl with the golden hair who is willing to fight for herself. Likewise, Ann gives Kong her trust, after he single-handedly disposes of the three Rexes. This leads to their first shared moment of something like intimacy, when they admire a beautiful sunset together from one of the island’s highest spots, in a cliché scene shown so uncliché.

Naomi Watts’ nuanced performance is one of the main reasons this relationship works on screen and comes across as believable. This is all the more impressive considering Watts’ interactions with Kong were filmed on a greenscreen stage and that she wasn’t really the the grip of a oversized ape. Andy Serkis, going a couple of sizes up following his Gollum role in The Lord of the Rings, did not stop at merely acting out Kongs movements for the motion capturing department, he was also present in all of Kongs scenes with Ann, physically mimicking all of Kongs movements. Judging by Watts’ acting, it paid off.

But this interplay is bittersweet because shortlived: Kong is brutally captured by the ship crew, a scene all the more powerful because of Ann’s desperate pleas to stop the cruelty. But profit-mongerer Carl Denham has his way, and ‘King Kong’ is displayed as the ‘8th Wonder of the World’ back in a New York theatre house. The chrome shakles can’t resist him long though, as Kong is fueled by his rageful quest to find Ann, laying parts of the city to waste while randomly picking up blondes on the street only to chuck the non-Anns away again.

It’s a chilling and tender moment when the two finally find back together on a deserted street and everything goes quiet. And yet again their moment of shared solitude is destroyed, now by the brute force of the police and military. Going on his protective instincts, Kong takes an away to the highest point he can find. Unfortunately, the final assault on Kong atop the Empire State Building is dragged to a near hideous length, but it’s here where the film climaxes with a beautiful and heart-tugging scene echoing their Skull Island sunset experience.

Ultimately, King Kong is a spectacular technical achievement with a strong emotional core that captivates the audience. But some pointless exposition, a lack of real consistency of quality throughout the film and its overlength are what keep Jackson’s work from ranking among this years’ top movies.

Posted by Tai in Reviews • Add to del.icio.us Add to Digg