Dec 21, 2005 12:14 AM
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(Updated Dec 21, 2005 12:19 AM)
Clock turns back to 1930's New york and the Great Depression. Carl Denham (Jack Black), a creative director likes to film his next on the uncharted 'Skull Island'. He has assembled a team that shares his dream, if not the craziness. Only problem - he's hounded by the studio bosses who want their money back. He manages to sweet-talk a struggling actress Ann (Watts), a B-grade Western regular for the Hero ; and con a well-known, if not well-to-do playwright Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody) into joining the expedition. All failures and strugglers, sailing into the unknown in a rusted ship and a motley crew desperate for any work.
Upon landing - should I paraphrase it to barely surviving - on Skull island, they're greeted by natives who invite them to a feast. Of course the film crew happen to be the menu! Ann gets offered as a sacrificial offering to the mighty Kong, a 25-feet ape who lives atop the mountains. Ships crew enter the jungles to save the girl. Only to discover they have landed in a theme park - 'Jurassic Park And More'. They fight against all odds and make it to the girl.
Beauty has impressed the beast with her acrobatics and blonde hair (Kong! et tu?). Girl's also fond of her new companion who has saved her life against all perils; and that includes fighting a couple of naughty T-Rexes who wanted a piece of her, literally. They manage to rescue the beauty and capture the beast. And mighty Kong's put to display. He escapes looking for his companion and makes it to the safety top of the highest mountain in NY, The Empire State building. He believes they can live companionably there. But little does he understand the cruelty of those who call themselves human beings.
Kong Team
Naomi Watts as Ann Darrow, the girl of dreams with an angelic face and heart. Hard to imagine Watts in the role, after her infamous masturbation and lesbian scenes in 'Mulholland Drive', or the tough mom fighting the supernatural in 'The Ring'. But she carries the role with finesse.
Adrien Brody as Jack Driscoll. Brooding, creative, shy - the hero of a romantic novel of bygone ages. Perfect foil to Naomi's beauty. May be Christian Bale or Hugh Jackson would have been more marketable heroes as hunks. But would they have fitted the role of a writer living semi-captive in an empty circus cage? He isn't even as charismatic as Kyle Chandler (playing B-grade hero Bruce Baxter). Well thought of.
Jack Black as Carl Denham reprises his 'Shallow Hal' role of a self-centered person, who finally realizes his folly at a great cost. Howard Roark of 1930's who specializes in destroying everything with his self-seeking 'creativity'. You might hate his selfishness in exploiting the situations and people to his advantage. But can't escape feeling sorry for him to the end.
Andy Serkis as Kong. No Kong review is complete without a mention of him and 130 odd facial sensors used to animate Kong. More of that later. He breathes life into the main character, and also plays 'Lumpy' the brave cook who gets eaten by the leeches.
The experience
King Kong happens to be a classic as well as a monster movie. PJ (Peter Jackson) has to satisfy both the audiences. While one expects a faithful reproduction of the original with today's production techniques, the other hungry for the special effects bonanza; coming as it is from the director for LotR (Lord of the Rings). He strives hard to please both and that accounts for the movie's running time of three hours. Too long some will complain, but not a Bollywood buff who's used to watching such.
The trip over the boat is part-Titanic, the brooding writer Jack stealing the girl's heart right under the nose of a haughty actor, a tap dance with the crew for the desserts. Jack and Rose lip-lock before the boat hits the ice-beg... Wait a minute, isn't this supposed to be a King Kong review? Oops! Wrong Boat. Let me jump over to 'Venture', and join the lead pair lip-lock before their ship runs into a wall of sea-mountains, a shallow shoreline of jutting sharp boulders, and a crew battling to keep their boat safe from hitting one and sinking.
Cut to the island, the native village is a golgotha of skulls and bones. Goblins on vacation or the long-lost cousins of Wendols? The sets are realistic, the village captured in it's grotesque grandeur through aerial-shots and closeups. Make up turns the native cannibals fearsome and believable. With fascinating sacrificial scene of Fire pouring downhill like lava, special effects team announce their arrival with drum-beats.
From there on it's a non-stop special effects show. Be it the stampede scene involving Brontos and raptors popularized by Jurassic park, other sharp teethed reptiles, stupid T-Rexes that run after human morsels - ignoring the other plump fauna etc. Don't complain about similarities with J. Park or other dinosaur movies. Give PJ some leeway, it's after all a remake. Didn't he add gaint man-eating leeches, table-sized bugs and spiders, mammoth sized scorpions, batmans - I mean man sized bats for originality. To a skeptic it might even appear PJ remade all monster movies, KK, JPark including 'Eight-legged Freaks' in one neat shot. I won't go that far.
The most fascinating special effects award goes to the scene where King Kong fights three T.Rexes simultaneously like a chivalrous knight saving the dame in distress from the harriers. Be it the scene where Kong gets attacked from (almost) all sides or the fall down the ravines (movie's full of them). Naomi hanging down a Rex's jaw or saddling over another's head. Or for that matter dangling between the scissor-sharp teeth of the two.
Why am I rambling so much over something that doesn't make sense? Man, if I were a Big T I would try to eat Kong instead of a skinny dame, who'll most likely get stuck in my throat. Or go looking for more meatier pastures instead of messing with a mad ape? May be it's the deeply hurt mammalian pride over Big Ts having my co-species for supper in so many JPark sequels? Go Kong give it to them, the reptilian suckers. Or is it awesome special effects that suspended my disbelief? Hard to tell!
Of course the more hyped effects is Serkis emotions, facial expressions and movements used to create the Kong. Serkis studying apes in Rwanda and becoming pals with a female Gorilla. Nothing technically new here. Barry Lenvinson used the VR-based technology to animate Michael Douglas and Demi Moore in 'Disclosure' as themselves. Serkis has already done 'Gollum' in LotR, which was novel. Tom Hanks has done it for nine characters in Polar Express. Even Voldy is half CGI! But has anyone tried a 25 feet monster?... Hulk? Don't say Yuck!... Let's say has anyone tried it with a 25 feet ape who steals a dancer? Overall good job. But at times Kong looks fake. Limitations of the digital technology?
Back to New York, and back to the period business. Period scenes mingled with special effects. Both critics and the audience wait with grand finale. Critics come out criticising why the FX scenes were not cut-down. The paying audience grumbles - why didn't he cut down those period scenes. It's difficult to please all. To be fair it's not a movie that intends to be an uneasy honeymoon between the critics and the Fx buffs. The screen play and the dialogues are taut, even comical when you least expect it, eliciting a chuckle here and there. Good job PJ, for you have balanced it well, and pleased the both in me.
