Review: Peter Jackson's King Kong

The movie that most deserves the "epic" tag in recent months has been released. Peter Jackson's King Kong is a modern day remake of the original classic. For those of you that don't know (like I didn't until earlier today), Peter Jackson is the guy who did Lord of The Rings. Now, as much as people love that trilogy, I'm not a huge fan of it. Whenever I see a movie that relies too heavily on CG, it puts me off - and knowing that the new Kong movie has plenty of CG had me a bit wary going in. Certain aspects of the promos really did catch my attention, like the 1930s New York scenes, the main chick boarding the ship, and the mighty roar of our gorilla friend while Jack Black enthusiastically shoots his heroine screaming atop mysterious black rocks with waves crashing in the background. The film starts out with a scene of Italian immigrant-types huddled around those fire-spewing oil barrels. I'd have to say that even though this may have been the reality, this type of scene seemed a little cliche, as did the outfits. The typical semi-formal clothing of the period accented with berets made the outfits for the men, and that continues the cliche further. It was interesting to see what NY might have looked like at the time, but the vision looked more like NY at the turn of the century than the 1930s. As with every single application, the CG sky looked way too fake to be allowed in a big budget film like this one. Disturbingly, all the cars except the taxi Jack Black rides in are fake, as are the roads and all. I much prefer carefully created sets to this CG nonsense. Its not at the point where it can be used EVERYWHERE! Remember Back to the Future 2? The custom look of the future Hill Valley was created by using creatively designed products and offered an interesting vision of the future. Conceptual products like the overboard were showcased, and really did a lot for the film. This stuff needs to make a comeback. Rantings aside, the first half of the movie does effectively capture the viewer's attention and draws him or her in to the undeniable adventure that will follow. I think Jack Black is very well cast in his role as the director of the movie (within the movie). I know what many of you might be thinking - that seeing him repeatedly in comedy movies will have you wondering whether he's being serious or sarcastic, but its not an issue like it is with Charlie Sheen. Another guy that is well cast is the guy that plays the actor. He really captures the look of those old actors like Carey Grant well. Throughout the movie, his look, his hair and his expressions reflect the character he's playing very well. I'd have to say he has the best old-school accent in the movie as well. Moving on, the journey to SE Asia seems a little rushed, and I was wondering if they had ships back in the day that could go from New York to Singapore non-stop. Well, if this movie is anything to go by, they did. The tension builds up smoothly and constantly until we are introduced to King Kong. The natives, although freaky, are a little overdone, and you can easily see that some of them are artificially painted black! Anyways, I thought natives in the SE Asia look like Indonesian/Malay people, not regular black people! Whats with white people and thinking natives are always black? And in New York, where are all the Italian people? How come everyone is just a regular white person (of Brit descent)? Once we find the cast totally past the wall and into the jungle, the pace slows down quite a bit. I'm also a little surprised that the characters don't find the prehistoric jungle interesting-looking with its massive trees and vines and all. I would have been freaking out at the incredibly cool scenery! One really weird thing throughout the movie is how fast the characters can run over difficult terrain, in some cases barefoot. Slippery rocks, dangerous cliffs and even weirder terrain make up the island but these people are sprinting around like Nike designed the island as a track for running practice. Totally not possible! I realize that this is in essence, a fairytale, but part of the fun in bringing it to the silver screen is making it seem believable. Wasn't the opening of X-Men cool? The way they made the human mutations looks so believable? His fight scenes with the dinosaurs are pretty cool (even though they're CG'ed out), and will have the audience rooting for him within seconds. The action-adventure theme gives way to a different one after our heroine starts interacting with the big K. When the big K starts showing emotion for the leading lady, its a little funny, but more sad than anything else. I find that I felt really bad for the giant ape, mostly because he seems all alone. The dinos are vast in number, but they only show the big K as the lone ape. At one point they show a skeleton of another ape, but that's about it. The pity from the audience continues to grow and grow until the climax of the movie, because they trap him in such an inhumane way and then put him on show in New York, all chained up. All this time, our beloved CG editors are giving our big ape puppy dog eyes so we feel more and more for him. Eventually the movie ends with the big K's demise in a titanic-style fall to the streets from the top of the Empire State building. I guess that's how the story goes, but I'm not really into feeling worse walking out of a movie than I felt walking in. In short, an epic, fallen short by the CG and the pity-me theme in the second half.