King Kong (2005)
Script/Story: 7
Acting/Casting: 8
Action: 9
Humor: 7
Horror: NA
Eye Candy: 10
Fun Factor: 8
Replayability: 6
Overall: 6

If only the rest of the film was so blameless.

King Kong can be roughly divided into thirds. The first hour takes place in New York and on the ocean, as Carl Denham (Jack Black is enjoyable and perfect in the role, the first film work I've ever seen of his.) faces the ruin of his film and career and desperately tries to find a writer, an actress for his film, and a way to escape New York before the movie financers can arrest him. The scenes of the city during the Great Depression are fine, Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) is great, Adrian Brody's character is great, and so are all of the supporting characters in New York and on the boat. Honestly, I enjoyed the first hour the most, even though there isn't any action or special effects or giant apes, etc. Peter Jackson can definitely write a script and direct it without the crutch of action or elves to keep things interesting.

The second hour is pretty much non-stop action and special effects, all taking place on Skull Island. Here we see dinosaurs, giant bugs, the massive King Kong, creepy murderous natives, and the most amazing large scale special effects I've ever seen. It's also the best set design I've ever seen, and if I could go explore Skull Island tomorrow I would be on a plane tonight. There is nothing but impossibly gorgeous scenery in the jungles, ancient stone temple ruins, dark tunnels, rotting forests, and so on. If I had not seen all the behind the scenes stuff on KongisKing.net, I would never have suspected that they didn't shoot 95% of it out in some incredible jungle somewhere, rather than all in a studio, with extensive CG work. It's just about flawless.

The action on the island is great, in several set pieces. Unfortunately, they're basically microcosms of the film. There are too many of them, they run too long, and they're not really required by or in service of the plot. They're of the, "and hilarity ensues" type, with PJ larding in more and more action just because no one stopped him from doing so. None of the scenes are bad, they are just unnecessary and redundant. Remember the scene where Legolas kills the oliphant all by himself in the big battle in Return of the King? It was awesome and funny with Gimli's, "That still only counts for one!" remark, and because it punctuated a great battle scene. Now imagine that after that, Legolas did basically the same thing to a second oliphant, and then a third, and then an even bigger oliphant with orcs on top of it, and then a flying dragon, and then, and then... I never thought I'd say that there could be too many great action scenes in a film, but that's pretty much what happens.

The third hour takes place back in NYC, with the huge Broadway show of the ape in chains, his inevitable escape and rampage and reunion with the girl, and his tragic last stand atop what was then the tallest building in the world. It's more good stuff, though I was fidgety during the long, long build up to the Broadway show, and then once Kong is rampaging there are quite a few scenes of him doing it, and doing it. They seem to be atop the Empire State Building for a good half hour too, and while PJ didn't revisit his "five endings are better than one" work from RotK, the final dying and sad goodbye seemed to go on damn near forever. I was crying through most of it, moved by the tragedy and the beauty of it, but eventually enough is enough.

The second and third hour were also handicapped, for me at least, by the fact that I knew how the movie turned out. Since I think almost everyone else does too, the lack of suspense is a problem. Everyone knows they find Skull Island, natives steal the girl, Kong takes her, the movie guys rescue her and capture the ape and take him back to NYC before he busts out and climbs up the Empire State Building and biplanes come to shoot him down. If someone somehow didn't know that, I think King Kong would be an enormously-entertaining movie, since there would be constant suspense and surprise. As it was I didn't get that caught up in some of the action, since I knew how it was going to turn out, and I wanted the plot to continue.

I enjoyed the first hour the most since I didn't know what was going to happen next, and there was always something new happening, even though nothing even approached the spectacle of later events. I knew they'd end up on the boat heading for Skull Island, but I enjoyed meeting all of the characters, enjoyed the performances by the actors (Jack Black and the maniacal gleam in his eye most of all), and wasn't bored a bit. It wasn't until they started running through one long action sequence after another that things bogged down, and they action sequences were great, both technically and by appearance.

The first hour is also marred by the fact that quite a few things were set up, and then never returned to. Characters showed traits and quirks that never paid off, characters who seemed to be important died without much ceremony or closure, and all the opening stuff seemed, afterwards, to have been relatively unimportant, since all that really mattered in the end was the difficult capture of Kong and the return to NYC.

My hope is that I'll like the film more on a second viewing. That won't be for a while, not until the DVD, but I liked the first 2 LotR films far more when I saw them for a second time and then even more on the extended edition DVDs, so there familiarity bred greater appreciation. I knew most of the plots of those films too, and spent much of my first viewing (unintentionally) analyzing how things were happening and comparing the movies to the books, which clearly sapped my enjoyment. Whether King Kong, which I knew far less about than the LotR books, will equally improve with subsequent viewings remains to be seen. I sure hope so, though, since I feel left out after my lukewarm reaction to a film with so much potential to be loved.

Pre-Movie Discussion

December 7, 2005

"Peter Jackson's King Kong is the most thrilling, soulful monster picture ever made. At last, it can be said without irony -- I laughed, I cried."
-- Jami Bernard, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

"This is spectacle filmmaking at its best, where a director is in tune with the story's underlying emotions and his own boyish love for adventure fantasy."
-- Kirk Honeycutt, HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

"King Kong will further Jackson's reputation as the leading visionary among fantasy filmmakers and it restores the Empire State Building to the stately glory of its past."
-- Jack Mathews, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

"What's up on screen is rarely short of staggering."
-- Todd McCarthy, VARIETY

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