Movie Review

King Kong

Carl Denham (Jack Black) is a filmmaker heading towards Skull Island in order to shoot his next picture. He is armed with a beautiful leading lady in Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) and one of New York's best playwrights in Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody). His plan is, for the price of an admission ticket, to show the world the last remaining unfound civilization. Only he gets more than he bargained for when he finds out that the island is actually inhabited by a giant ape.

"King Kong" proves just how much director Peter Jackson is like director Michael Bay. They both have a high-tolerance for over-indulgence. Only the funny thing is, critics always seem to come back to Jackson wanting more while Bay's films get the shaft constantly. That Peter Jackson is a visual wizard is an argument that I will not contend with, but his work always seems to feel more like a steamroller than a smooth ride downstream. Everything from this movie's character development to its action sequences to even its love story seems so excessive that Jackson may as well create a monument to the movie and have the audience make a pilgrimage five times a year to worship it.

Kong starts promisingly enough. Jackson's set design is marvelous, fully creating Depression-era 1933 New York. Naomi Watts and Jack Black also work wonders with their roles as Ann Darrow and Carl Denham. Watts is gorgeous and sweet, and captures her character's vulnerability and desperation fully. Jack Black's transition to a more serious role proves a success, showing Denham's hard-nosed, fast talking demeanor. We have to believe that this character is insane and rebellious enough to go out on a limb in order to make the perfect film and Black completely captures that. He also has a few very funny bits like his first encounter with Ann Darrow. "You can trust me Miss Darrow, I?m a film producer.? Adrien Brody is also good as the courageous but introverted Jack Driscoll, but he doesn't make much of an impression.

Here is where Jackson begins to wear this plot thin. As the voyage begins towards Skull Island, Jackson continues to flesh out his characters, taking what feels like an hour in order to introduce people like the captain and the deck hand and the first mate named Jimmy. All I could think of is "Why on Earth do I have to know who Jimmy is?", which is a question that Jackson never bothers to answer. It's hard to imagine why Jackson ? a fan of the original "King Kong? ? would think that the thing that what was wrong with the original Kong was that these background characters were never fleshed out enough but their roles really should have been lessened.

Jackson, as I said, is a visual mastermind however. In no scene is this more evident than the suspense-filled approach toward Skull Island, or the creepy looking natives who reside there. The natives have been called racist by some, and those arguments are justified but considering the scene is being lifted from a film made in the 1930's, they become something of a landmark to a more closed-minded time period. This is also where Jackson unveils his Kong ? a towering, fully functional CGI concoction that shows a wide range of emotions like rage, sadness, disinterest, and heartfelt adoration. This is the best creation of Kong yet, and one of the finer achievements in CGI.

Only Jackson decides to spend more time on this island than he actually needs to. There is a great fight between Kong and many T-rexes, as he pounds, breaks jaws and takes names. Only Jackson also needs to create a tyrannosaurus stampede, a giant centipede attack, many rescue-Ann Darrow attempts, and several other things that look really cool but don't really add much to the story, which is another problem with this movie. This is a simple love story between a woman and giant ape that even Jackson seems to have to make great strides to believe in. He stretches the relationship with meet-cute encounters between Ann and Kong, desperately trying to establish a connection between the two, but he never quite gets there.

Which brings me to this movie's main problem, and that is that it really has no meat. It has a lot of spectacle, really enticing action sequences and special effects, and good actors as well, but just nothing to sustain a movie that is over three hours in running time. By the time we finally get to the Kong-terrorizes NY scene, visions of "Lost World: Jurassic Park" are already dancing in our heads. This is a popcorn flick, and a long one at that, disguised as Oscar bait.

Craig's Grade: C+

A	10.9%
B	41.8%
C	31.8%
D	15.3%
F	0.3%