I’m going to start out with the worst thing I can possibly say about this film: it is indecently long. The first hour could be easily slashed to about 20 minutes, entire subplots (Jamie Bell as a Heart of Darkness-reading wild child) could be cut without harming the film in the slightest, and every single fucking setpiece goes on too long; some for about 30 seconds (the climactic dogfight), some for a full five minutes (the ill-advised “run from stampeding apatosauruses” scene). And beyond that, I think that it’s kind of immoral for a b-picture (and it is unabashedly that) to be any longer than about two hours, unlike this lumbering, 187-minute giant.
Good. Now that’s out of my system, I can gush.
I don’t like CGI, just on principle. Everyone who knows anything about my film tastes knows that. So it’s a big deal when I say that I loved – LOVED, I tell you – the effects in this film. My allegiance will always lie with the original (as indeed will Peter Jackson’s), but this giant gorilla looks outstanding.
As acted by Andy “Gollum” Serkis, Kong is also the first CG creation outside of a Pixar cartoon who actually struck me as a character and a performance (the just-named Gollum always felt pasted on the frame to me, and it took me out of the film). Unlike the 1933 puppet, Kong in this film feels like an actual person, or at least an actual gorilla with actual emotions. There’s one amazing scene, early on, when Kong has just captured Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts, valiantly juuuuuust barely failing to convince me she’s not acting opposite a blue screen). Uncertain and scared, she decides to entertain the giant ape with some bits from her vaudeville routine. Kong’s response is indifference, followed by amusement, followed by disappointment when she’s done. It’s a surprisingly tender and lovely moment.
Later, in the middle of Kong’s Manhattan rampage, he takes Ann to Central Park, where they basically skate together on the frozen pond. I know, I thought it sounded ludicrous when I read about it, too, but it’s one of the most romantic scenes in a movie this year (my thought as I watched: “If Brokeback Mountain is a universal love story “about” gay cowboys, is this a universal love story “about” bestiality, and is that creepy?”).
That’s the huge shift in this version of King Kong, and what might almost have made it better than the first if only it weren’t bloated. It’s no longer about a savage beast and a frightened blonde who screams a lot. It’s about a giant animal of uncertain sensitivity, and a young woman who discovers, on balance, he might be a better match than the gawky writer (Adrien Brody) she was canoodling with on the ship. It’s actually a love story, not an adventure film, and it’s richer for it.
The problem is that this tends to take away from all of the non-Kong & Ann scenes, some of which are really well done. For once, Jack Black is not annoying as hell (he’s given nothing “funny” to do, and this helps), and God save us all he actually manages to bring a center of gravity to the proceedings. Proceedings which include all of the original film’s setpieces, with a few new ones tossed in for good measure.
The problem I had with Peter Jackson’s direction was largely the problem I had with the Lord of the Rings trilogy. He’s a gawker. He like to frame his shots so that every! new! reveal! seems like the Biggest Fucking Deal In The History Of The World!!! And it gets tiresome. The very generic musical score hits us over the head with this, as well.
More basically, Jackson needs to sign a pledge to never again use slow-motion, and even more to please stop fucking with the shutter speed. It was a gaudy misfire in Gladiator, but ever since then it’s been de rigeur for action scenes in Hollywood cinema. It’s just stupid to see that characteristic jerky motion every time something minimally exciting happens. Plus, he needs to fire his editor: much as in the LOTR battle scenes, it’s basically impossible to follow what happens in more than a basic “he died! That’s bad!” sense.
Still, I haven’t spent the last 24 hours thinking about the crappy setpieces. I’ve been thinking about Ann Darrow cradled in Kong’s hand as she sleeps, almost certainly the most peaceful she’s been in years. And I’ve been wishing like hell that it hadn’t taken 90 minutes for the film to get to that point. 8/10