I am not what one would call a Peter Jackson fan boy. I thought the Rings movies were well made, at least the two of them that I've seen. Return of the King still sits unwatched on my DVD shelf. A crime to many I suppose, but I'll get to it eventually.
So what about Kong? After now having seen it twice, once by choice, once as a favor to a friend, I suppose I should be in a position to offer some thoughts on it. It is usually at this point that I would offer a quick film synopsis, but unless you've been living on another planet, you certainly know the plot and I can dispense with that or I can just shorten it down to Girl Meets Ape, Ape Saves Girl, Girl and Ape like each other, Ape loses girl, Ape finds girl, and Beauty kills the beast.
Growing up, the original King Kong was easily one of my favorite films, just as it was Peter Jackson's. As many have said, you can only be first once, so it would be a herculean task to take a film that everyone is extremely familiar with and give it new life. Has he succeeded? As a cowboy friend of mine might say: "Yep!"
Despite all the silly endless arguing about how good or bad the effects are in the film, I can tell you without the slightest hesitation you'll get more than your money's worth out of the price of a ticket. What is on the screen is nothing short of visually stunning. Once we crash land on Skull Island, Jackson fills the screen with so many spectacular scenes that your you'll be on sensory overload. Then, as if that isn't enough, he tops it off with Kong running amok in a recreation of 1930's New York City that you'll swear he went back in a time machine to film. Forget anything you've seen before as Jackson does everything possible to top his previous work, and anybody else's for that matter. Jackson may also have put the nail in the coffin of any more possible Jurassic Park sequels. How could they even come close to topping this when he's made those films into the equivalent of B movies from the fifties? And it's not just the Special Effects that deserve applause. One has to have thought that playing Ann Darrow would have been a thankless role for any actress. The myth was that in order to play Ann Darrow, all you had to do was to be able to have a loud piercing scream and to look scared a lot. You can throw that notion away with this film. What Jackson did was give the character of Ann Darrow a great deal more depth than any previous version (for the record, the character's name in the 1976 remake was called Dwan, but a name change doesn't change anything really). But now, Darrow is as much at the heart of this film as King Kong himself is. Completely gone is the somewhat kinky affection Kong had for Ann in the original and in the previous remake. In this film, it is made not only understandable but quite plausible. This is due in no small part to an excellent performance by Naomi Watts. She takes the character and makes it her own. I would go so far as to say that it certainly deserves an Oscar nomination, although I doubt that it will be forthcoming. She has taken what could have been an impossible task and somehow managed to pull it off. I've seen other performances where actors were reacting to CGI that would later be put into the film. Often it seems as if they are not sure of what they are doing. You'll never have that feeling in the scenes between Ann Darrow and Kong.
There have been some quibbles about Adrien Brody not being right for the role of Jack Driscoll. If this was the original, you might have a point, but it is not. This Driscoll is in actuality, a completely new character, and certainly a far cry from the original Jack Driscoll who was sort of just there. Of course, the relationship between Ann and Jack is developed quickly, but when you think about it, his romance with Ann is not really central to this film anyway. It is there, it serves it's purpose, but even if it were developed more fully it would always be overshadowed by the relationship between Kong and Darrow.
I have to admit that in the first viewing of this film, I was taken aback by Jack Black as Carl Denham. This may be because I was still subconsciously picturing Black in such films as School of Rock, Orange County, and Shallow Hall. This was certainly a different kind of character for him. The second time I viewed the film, I was able to forget that and thought it was a much better performance than I had originally. And like Darrow and Driscoll, keep in mind that this is a completely different Denham than in the original. As a matter of fact, the fact that although the names are the same, Jackson having made the three leads so different went a long way towards making the characters new.
I think the first hour in New York and on the steamer could have been edited and tightened a bit. Yes, it's great for character development, but I think you could have achieved this in a bit less time and not hurt the film in any way.
There's no doubt that I got my money's worth both times I saw the film. And if you can give me my money's worth not once, but twice, then I have no choice but to give you my grade which for this giant Ape extravaganza is an A.
So what about Kong? After now having seen it twice, once by choice, once as a favor to a friend, I suppose I should be in a position to offer some thoughts on it. It is usually at this point that I would offer a quick film synopsis, but unless you've been living on another planet, you certainly know the plot and I can dispense with that or I can just shorten it down to Girl Meets Ape, Ape Saves Girl, Girl and Ape like each other, Ape loses girl, Ape finds girl, and Beauty kills the beast.
Growing up, the original King Kong was easily one of my favorite films, just as it was Peter Jackson's. As many have said, you can only be first once, so it would be a herculean task to take a film that everyone is extremely familiar with and give it new life. Has he succeeded? As a cowboy friend of mine might say: "Yep!"
Despite all the silly endless arguing about how good or bad the effects are in the film, I can tell you without the slightest hesitation you'll get more than your money's worth out of the price of a ticket. What is on the screen is nothing short of visually stunning. Once we crash land on Skull Island, Jackson fills the screen with so many spectacular scenes that your you'll be on sensory overload. Then, as if that isn't enough, he tops it off with Kong running amok in a recreation of 1930's New York City that you'll swear he went back in a time machine to film. Forget anything you've seen before as Jackson does everything possible to top his previous work, and anybody else's for that matter. Jackson may also have put the nail in the coffin of any more possible Jurassic Park sequels. How could they even come close to topping this when he's made those films into the equivalent of B movies from the fifties? And it's not just the Special Effects that deserve applause. One has to have thought that playing Ann Darrow would have been a thankless role for any actress. The myth was that in order to play Ann Darrow, all you had to do was to be able to have a loud piercing scream and to look scared a lot. You can throw that notion away with this film. What Jackson did was give the character of Ann Darrow a great deal more depth than any previous version (for the record, the character's name in the 1976 remake was called Dwan, but a name change doesn't change anything really). But now, Darrow is as much at the heart of this film as King Kong himself is. Completely gone is the somewhat kinky affection Kong had for Ann in the original and in the previous remake. In this film, it is made not only understandable but quite plausible. This is due in no small part to an excellent performance by Naomi Watts. She takes the character and makes it her own. I would go so far as to say that it certainly deserves an Oscar nomination, although I doubt that it will be forthcoming. She has taken what could have been an impossible task and somehow managed to pull it off. I've seen other performances where actors were reacting to CGI that would later be put into the film. Often it seems as if they are not sure of what they are doing. You'll never have that feeling in the scenes between Ann Darrow and Kong.
There have been some quibbles about Adrien Brody not being right for the role of Jack Driscoll. If this was the original, you might have a point, but it is not. This Driscoll is in actuality, a completely new character, and certainly a far cry from the original Jack Driscoll who was sort of just there. Of course, the relationship between Ann and Jack is developed quickly, but when you think about it, his romance with Ann is not really central to this film anyway. It is there, it serves it's purpose, but even if it were developed more fully it would always be overshadowed by the relationship between Kong and Darrow.
I have to admit that in the first viewing of this film, I was taken aback by Jack Black as Carl Denham. This may be because I was still subconsciously picturing Black in such films as School of Rock, Orange County, and Shallow Hall. This was certainly a different kind of character for him. The second time I viewed the film, I was able to forget that and thought it was a much better performance than I had originally. And like Darrow and Driscoll, keep in mind that this is a completely different Denham than in the original. As a matter of fact, the fact that although the names are the same, Jackson having made the three leads so different went a long way towards making the characters new.
I think the first hour in New York and on the steamer could have been edited and tightened a bit. Yes, it's great for character development, but I think you could have achieved this in a bit less time and not hurt the film in any way.
There's no doubt that I got my money's worth both times I saw the film. And if you can give me my money's worth not once, but twice, then I have no choice but to give you my grade which for this giant Ape extravaganza is an A.