director
Peter Jackson
screenwriters
Peter Jackson
Fran Walsh
Philippa Boyens
based on
a story by
Merian
C. Cooper
Edgar Wallace
producers
Jan Blenkin
Carolynne Cunningham
Peter Jackson
Fran Walsh
cinematographer
Andrew Lesnie
music
James Newton Howard
editor
Jamie Selkirk
cast
Naomi Watts (Ann Darrow)
Jack Black (Carl Denham)
Adrien Brody (Jack Driscoll)
Thomas Kretschmann (Capt. Englehorn)
Colin Hanks (Preston)
Andy Serkis (Kong/Lumpy)
Evan Parke (Hayes)
Jamie Bell (Jimmy)
Lobo Chan (Choy)
John Sumner (Herb)
Craig Hall (Mike)
Kyle Chandler (Bruce Baxter)
mpaa rating: PG-13
running
time: 187m
u.s.
release: 12/14/05
video
availability: TBA
official
website
other peter
jackson films
reviewed on this website:
- the
frighteners
the lord of the rings:
- the
fellowship of the ring
- the
two towers
- the
return of the king
see also:
- peter
jackson: the films
(overview of his work,
with brief reviews of each movie)
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Peter Jackson's King Kong
is a massive fetish object -- his gift to himself for bringing
home the bacon (and the Oscars) with his Lord
of the Rings trilogy. He's unquestionably a master, and
this is unquestionably a piece of work -- an impassioned act
of tribute to Jackson's favorite movie, the hoary old 1933 original
-- but I can't really call it a masterpiece. I found it diverting
yet exhausting, a nineteen-course meal from a chef who insists
on feeding you long after you've unbuckled your belt and called
it quits. This Kong rumbles on for three hours and seven
minutes, twice as long as the '33 version, and also twice as
long as Jackson's previous (and, I continue to think, his best)
ode to star-crossed love, Heavenly Creatures.
Yet the movie's length isn't
really the issue (aside from a few flabby spots, it flies by);
the problem is Jackson's eagerness to wow you. He's like a little
kid making you sit through an epic re-enactment of his fantasies
using his toy dinosaurs and gorillas. And not just one or two
toys, but dozens of them. When the tramp steamer
Venture finally arrives at the desolate Skull Island (after
about an hour of screen time), the heroes -- including struggling
actress Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts), obsessed moviemaker Carl Denham
(Jack Black), and playwright Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody) --
spend lots of time running away from dinos, bats, large and disgusting
bugs, and a director with a serious case of overindulgence. After
a while the spectacle becomes like a blunt object grinding into
your forehead.
In all versions of this tale,
the beast's tragic error is to fall for a blonde. Jackson has
blithely retained the material's sexist and racist elements;
in some schools of thought, the story is a warning to black men
to stay away from white women. Naomi Watts' Ann Darrow is a comedienne
who wins Kong's heart by doing Vaudeville routines. The erotic
subtext of the 1933 version (who can forget Kong pulling off
Fay Wray's clothes and sniffing his fingertips?) and also the
1976 version is gone, replaced by a sort of teddy-bear affection
that goes both ways: Ann and Kong think of each other as lovable
pets. She also asserts herself with Kong, but not nearly as much
-- or as amusingly -- as Jessica Lange in the much-criticized
'76 remake.
King Kong is curiously humorless for a movie
about a 25-foot simian going mooshy over a dame. Even at its
sprawling length, it scarcely has room to breathe; Jackson is
always rushing along to the next thing, and even the sporadic
attempts at beauty (like the overtly Hallmark-card moment when
Ann and Kong enjoy a sunset and she teaches him the word "beautiful,"
a moment sappily reprised at the end) are banal. Happily lost
inside his WETA kingdom in New Zealand, Jackson appears to have
forgotten what people are about. He gets a terrible performance
from Adrien Brody, who seems restless -- he's not a green-screen
actor by temperament. Jack Black does Orson Welles lite, cranking
his damn camera when all hell is breaking loose; Jackson clearly
identifies with Carl Denham's relentless showman's instinct,
but all we see is an arrogant twit willing to get everyone killed
just to make a name for himself.
Some of King Kong is
entertaining, if oversold. A fight between Kong and one T-rex
would be fine (and was fine in the original), but Jackson has
Kong fend off three of them at once, until we can finally
enjoy a showdown between the big ape and the toughest of the
dinos. The New York of the 1930s is, to use a cliché,
lovingly recaptured, though it's a New York known only in movies.
King Kong is far from a failure of energy or imagination
-- Jackson's enthusiasm is often infectious, and the critical
rhapsodies probably refer to the sheer big, thick, movie-movieness
of the thing. I succumbed more than once; its good parts are
enough to recommend it, with serious reservations. But, dear
God, I wish Jackson would shake off his addiction to gigantism,
his apparent need to punch everything up three times as much
as it needs to be. As the creators of another big-monster
remake a few years ago found out, size isn't everything.
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