Randomramblings

I can safely say that King Kong isn't Peter Jackson's greatest work. He was working on this project for the last two years, but I was rather disappointed by the end result.

Knowing I was about to see a three-hour film, I braced myself for something highly reminiscent of Lord of the Rings. I was certain I was about to see a real cure for sore eyes. I was wrong. The film is overlong. While I could watch the extended edition of LotR, Return of the King, which is over four hours, without a break, there were several moments in King Kong when I checked my watch to see just how much longer will this take to end. It is not my habit to check the time when watching a film, however the middle part of Kong stretches and stretches into eternity and a good cut would do the film a favour. The story begins and ends in New York, both of the parts take about an hour, perhaps slightly more. Then there's the middle part, when the party is either traveling to or is on the Skull Island. That part is just too long, mainly because it has nothing big to contribute to the plot (apart from a big, hairy, vengeful monkey). There are several (in any case too many) scenes where the sailors or the movie crew fight the dinosaurs, spiders and other terrible creatures. And after the first ten minutes of one character being hunted by a particularly nasty Tyranosaurus rex, and then another of the same species and finally by a third specimen of the kind, you sort of start felling they overdosed the dinosaur parts. Whether CGI people were writing begging letters to Jackson, to let them work on Kong, because they have children to feed, I don't know. One thing is certain: too many creatures, too little plot. The creatures were admittedly horrible. Whoever designed them must have really terrifying night mares. (And I thought my night mares were bad...)

As I said previously, these creatures should be incorporated into the action sequences. The middle part of Kong is just one huge action sequence, which (I feel) is unsupported by any substantial plot, apart from the lady being kidnapped and then given as a yearly (?) tribute to the giant monkey; at which point her colleagues find she's missing and they form what seems a rescue party with suicidal intentions. At the heart of this rescue party is Adrien Brody as a screenplay writer, who's fallen for the lady and naturally feels, he can't live without her anymore and so it is but natural that he go and save her. Apart from a few more convincing scenes, their love is nothing more than platonic and there are no sparkles flying. I must, however difficult it might be, admit that I've been nursing a soft spot for Adrien Brody ever since I saw The Pianist and predicted that he's going to win that year's Oscar. (The fact that his nose is crooked does not make my resolve any less firm, but thanks for asking.) So I was a little reluctant to go and see a film where he'll be falling for another girl. However, after having seen the film, I can safely say that Naomi Watts is no real threat to our (mine&Adrien's) happy future together. To be exact, I thought that the monkey and Watts had more chemistry between them. Because Brody and Watts' relationship was so superficial, it was difficult for me to understand why exactly would he go into the wild, full of the world's (long extinct) foulest creatures to save her. And let me also say, however painful it is, that Brody is never going to be a huge action hero; he just lacks that machismo and self-centeredness.

Watts (at least to me) LOOKS very 1930s. She tried to get into the role and for the most part, she succeeded. She however, is more cute than fatal. How she could be a femme fatale for a monkey is beyond my comprehension. Maybe it's just that she knows how to deal with men and how to guide them, so she can't fail with something that is, admittedly bigger, but less sophisticated. And at least the monkey cannot say: "Honey, if you don't behave, say goodbye to that cashmere coat," so she can twist and bend the rules to her liking.

The best actor in the film would have to be Jack Black. A film director, obsessed with making spectacular movies that will sell, you can almost see the dollar signs flashing in his eyes. Mad, eccentric and ready to risk everything to get rich, he was simply the most powerful character in the film.

Since one of the last lines of the film is "Beauty killed the beast" I can hardly understand if this film was really about the death of a giant monkey and why. It seemed to me to be much more about how people are prepared to go to extremes to discover something primal, something that has not yet been touched by civilization and how they make money out of that. How people are willing to risk the lives of their friends to get what they want. How people just cannot get enough of the media attention and how all this leads them to their end.

It is not a bad film, but it has its flaws. For my part, I thought LotR was infinitely better. But more about that next time.