King Kong (2005)

 

The second (better but still unneeded) remake of King Kong lasts more than three hours, yet it tells what is, essentially, the same basic story as the original version from 1933, which clocked in at a comparatively terse 100 minutes. Director/cowriter Peter Jackson, fresh from his success with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, seems to have decided that what the first King Kong needed was more time on each element of the plot. We all know that Jackson does like to think of film as long-form entertainment. Thus, it takes almost twenty minutes for movie director Carl Denham (Jack Black, tamped down a bit from his usual boisterousness) and his potential star, Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts), to board the ship that takes them to Skull Island and their encounter with Kong. We spend another thirty minutes aboard the ship before we get to the island itself, and it’s almost an hour into the film before we first hear Kong’s roar and another ten minutes before he himself appears onscreen. That’s a long time for an audience to wait in order to see the star of the movie. Thankfully, about half of King Kong takes place on Skull Island as we intercut between two storylines. One has us watching as Ann initially tries to escape from Kong, who seems bewitched by her blonde hair when he first captures her, only to have her turn to him as her protector from three rather acrobatic dinosaurs intent of having her as a snack. The other plotline follows Denham, playwright/screenwriter Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody), and other men from the ship trying to find Ann to rescue her from Kong. Ann’s relationship with Kong is, of course, complicated by the weird idea that this is all some sort of metaphor regarding interracial relationships – although this is somewhat less emphasized here than in the original and the horrid 1976 version. Still, it’s fun to watch Watts performing some of Darrow’s familiar vaudeville tricks to entertain Kong, and it’s certainly breathtaking to watch the carefully choreographed extended sequence involving Kong protecting yet almost failing to protect Ann from what appear to be three Tyrannosaurus Rexes. Seeing two of the dinosaurs and Kong and Ann entangled in vines and swinging to catch or avoid each other is a highlight of the film, and I laugh aloud each time I watch as one of the dinosaurs chases after Ann, who is rather tiny by comparison, when he has a huge dead dinosaur in his mouth already. Does he want some sort of small appetizer or after-dinner treat? Finish your dinner before you go hunting for more food. As for the men trying to find Ann, well, they’ve picked a crazy island to visit. A stampede by a group of brontosauri and what appear to be velociraptors, a valley filled with nasty bugs, including giant spiders that are meant to be inspired by those in a sequence that was removed from the original for being too gruesome – it’s an astonishing series of encounters with more than a few sad deaths along the way. You should be familiar with the outline of the story already if you’ve seen either of the earlier versions. Kong get captured (this time with the help of chloroform) and taken to New York where he is put on display as the Eighth Wonder of the World. He escapes, finds Ann, and climbs to the top of the Empire State Building. The last line of the 2005 King Kong is the same as the one from 1933: “It was beauty killed the beast.” So why does it need to be twice as long if we’re going to hit the major plot points and end the same way? Perhaps it’s so you can have a lovely sequence in New York after Kong and Ann are reunited, involving him sliding around a frozen river with her in hand, and so you can perhaps spend more time on Skull Island, which is, as Ann says to Kong, quite beautiful when you aren’t about to be devoured by a dinosaur or attacked by enormous (hungry) crickets or being hoisted aloft by what appear to be giant bats. We also get to see more of the development of the relationship between Ann and Jack aboard the ship before they land on the island, so there is more of a sense of his desire to protect her. Sadly, having more time to tell the story doesn’t mean that this version of King Kong does a better job in its depiction of the natives of Skull Island. They’re just as dangerous and scary as they have been in previous versions, and even the performers who portray the “natives” in Kong’s New York show are stereotypically “savage” (and, it appears, in blackface, at least some of them). Watts and Brody are, of course, talented actors and do fine work here, and Black does allow us a few moments of levity, just as you would expect. Kyle Chandler shines as the vain Bruce Baxter, an actor who seems to believe he’s really the center of everyone’s attention. It’s all very entertaining, but it does beg the question as to whether or not we need more of a story (albeit expertly filmed) that we already know. Why not just watch the original again? By the way, the original did not receive any Oscar nominations. None, not even for its groundbreaking visual effects. Meanwhile, the 1976 version, as bad as it is, chalked up three nominations and one win, and this version received four nominations and three wins. Astonishing, really, when you consider it.

Oscar Wins: Best Achievement in Sound Mixing, Best Achievement in Sound Editing, and Best Achievement in Visual Effects

Other Nomination: Best Achievement in Art Direction