King Kong

Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) looks into Kong’s (Andy Serkis) adoring eyes.
Photo Credit: Weta Digital Ltd./Universal Studios.
Copyright: © 2005 Universal Studios. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

 
There seem to be two movies intercut with one another. The first is a story about Carl Denham (Jack Black) and his haphazard plan to make a movie, the details of which he hasn’t completely sorted out. The second centers on the relationship between an out-of-work vaudeville actor, Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts), and an enormous primate. I stress this observation now to keep my review in context of these facts.

The film opens in New York during the Depression. A man in a well-tailored suit reaches into the garbage for a half-eaten apple. People line the streets waiting for bread and hot soup. A vaudeville act tries to stay alive despite being unable to keep its actors gainfully employed. Simultaneously, Denham is on the edge of having his completion funds yanked by studio executives.

Denham has this bizarre idea about going to a remote island to film a story he’s still making up as he goes along… except he has yet to make up most of it. “He’s had a lot of… near success,” says one studio executive. The executives shoo him out of the screening room to confer over the fate of his unfinished film. Meanwhile, he escapes with the footage, cameras and some extra reels. He’s determined to make the film anyway.

His previous star pulled out, his studio pulling the plug, Denham scores an ace in the hole when he stumbles upon the svelte Darrow as she’s trying to make away from a produce stand with an apple. Realizing she has the qualities on which he can capitalize in his picture, Denham offers her the lead, “I’m someone you can trust. I’m a movie producer!” There’s a funny moment when, as Denham’s pitching the story to her, she begins driving the story… imagining details along the way. Denham’s reaction is classic and priceless, as he starts to nod in simultaneous approval, surprise and self-credit.

There’s some charm in these beginning scenes. After Denham’s narrow escape from the studio executives and the police, Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody), a famous screenwriter, writes fifteen pages of the script and tries to make a fast getaway off the chartered vessel. Denham stalls him until the ship, under the supervision of Captain Englehorn (Thomas Kretschmann), leaves port. The popular actor, Bruce Baxter (Kyle Chandler looking a bit like a younger Alec Baldwin), spends the majority of the departure posing in the manner of the posters that surround him in his quarters.

The island to which they’re journeying, Skull Island, isn’t so much found by them, rather it finds them. The strange walls of stone near the shore seem to move strategically to prohibit their exit. As the crew prepares to go ashore, one of the youngest shipmen, Jimmy (Jamie Bell), who’s been reading Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, poignantly raises the question, “Why does Marlow keep going up the river? Why doesn’t he turn back?”

They encounter the requisite, caricatureseque tribals who capture them and offer them up to the gods… or, well, the gorilla. I was kind of excited by the creepy, zombie-like trance the natives slip into as they await their gargantuan god.

We’re nearly an hour into the film and it’s finally picked up some speed. At 187 minutes, the film feels, to me, rather bloated. When Kong emerges, the film falls into action mode. There are some harrowing sequences, especially a fight between King Kong and a couple of dinosaurs. It’s well-choreographed and it resolves one of my largest complaints with CG.

Most visual effects involving characters tend to produce movement and interaction that doesn’t look as though the characters are dealing with real-world physical resistance factors. They may often seem like they defy gravity in scenes where it would assist one’s suspension of disbelief if there were at least some sense of force being applied to resist other forces–gravity, for example. With Kong, you feel that his movement is in proportion to the magnitude of physical obstacles or countering forces in his way. Moving his entire body across the jungle is a chore, but not completely out of proportion with the same degree of physical exertion on a normal-sized gorilla.

The shining jewel in this movie lay in every scene involving just Darrow and Kong. With the rest of this top-heavy movie shut out and the focus tightened on only their interaction, the movie becomes in those moments something entirely brilliant. Watts does an excellent job conveying a wide scope of emotions and intentions: At first, she exhibits fear, as her ability to produce chilling screams is astonishing. Curious, then, Darrow begins to wonder, naturally, why Kong doesn’t simply eat her. She becomes exasperated when trying to keep the mighty ape entertained. She lapses into her juggling act as he yawns in comical disapproval, but gets some adorable laughs from Kong as she stumbles around in a slapstick bit.

There is a masterful scene that could border on hilarity if it were executed with even the slightest hint of insincerity. After being captured by the crew, and put on humiliating display in a Broadway show back in New York, Kong, beaten down, is reminded of his dear friend Ann, who’s part in the stage spectacle is substituted by another actress. Amidst the melee that erupts when he frees himself of his shackles and escapes, Kong escapes and eventually finds Ann, the only one he trusts and cares for. He carries her away to a frozen lake, and sits on the ice… and twirls around with her in hand. The effect is purely magical, but is interrupted as the military finally comes into action to “save” the city from Kong.

By the time the film ends, the tragedy that befalls Kong, whose only desire in the world seems to have been sincere and honest friendship, is truly heartbreaking. Andy Serkis, who also plays Lumpy, the steamship’s cook, did the movement for Kong in a process by which his motions are captured on computer and then mapped to the computer 3-D model of Kong. This same process was used to capture Serkis’ performance as Gollum in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

Every single nuance and emotion makes you forget you are looking at a computer generated character. This is a testament to Serkis’ talent more than anything, though due credit ought to be given to the CG artists who modeled Kong’s appearance. I remember finding myself on the verge of tears upon viewing a side-by-side comparison of Andy Serkis and the computer-generated Gollum in “The Two Towers” (this side-by-side is on the Extended Edition DVD). What amazed me was that his performance was so thorough, the modelers did not need to embellish any aspect of it… The way Serkis emotes and acts is identical to the finished product. It’s all him, and it’s unfortunate the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences does not yet recognize performances such as this with an award.

The rest of the film’s computer effects seem rather drab and at times laughable. In scenes where actors are running away from CG dinosaurs, it appears that they’re running in front of a projection screen. This may or may not have been intentional on Jackson’s part, to perhaps reproduce some of the feel of the early films of this genre, including the original “King Kong” (1933). The problem is that it’s entirely incongruous with the meticulous detail given Kong and the amazing reproduction of Depression-era skylines of New York.

Peter Jackson, director of “The Frighteners” and “Meet the Feebles,” does seem rather fascinated with the gross and creepy… but here he dwells entirely too much on a sequence where large insects encroach upon and attack the crew. It could have been several minutes shorter.

Overall, as I said at the beginning of this review, my impression is that there are two movies occurring here. If they were made separately, each could be enjoyed on their own terms, I suppose, but the juxtaposition of the two forces you to either switch degrees of disbelief back and forth, or simply ignore the more lumbering half. Whether or not you will be entertained by this film depends entirely on how willing you are to sit through the first to get to the second.

King Kong • Dolby® Digital surround sound in select theatres • Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 • Running Time: 187 minutes • MPAA Rating: PG-13 for frightening adventure violence and some disturbing images. • Distributed by Universal Pictures