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Laramie Movie Scope:
King Kong (2005)

A mixed bag of monkeyshines

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by Robert Roten, Film Critic
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December 15, 2005 -- The latest “King Kong” remake is a worthy successor to the 1933 original, and greatly superior to the 1976 remake and most other versions of this classic beauty and the beast tale. Using the latest advanced computer graphics, director Peter Jackson (“Lord of the Rings”) has made the big ape a better character in the film than some of the human actors in it. Jackson succumbs to temptation, however, and overdoes some action sequences to the point that they become ridiculous. More restraint would have made a more believable film. It should have also been cut shorter. The movie is mostly entertaining, but suffers from various excesses.

This remake preserves the original story's power and adds some nice touches like Ann Darrow (played by Naomi Watts of “21 Grams”) performing her vaudeville routine for the big ape. Another nice scene as Anne and ape sliding around on an icy pond in Central Park. The “Beauty and Beast” relationship between Ann Darrow and Kong is actually better than in the original, thanks to brilliant acting by Watts and Andy Serkis as Kong. Serkis uses his motion-capture experience in Lord of the Rings to make Kong come to life as never before. Watts really is incredible in her ability to dissappear into the personae of Anne Darrow. She is totally believable in a story which is often unbelievable. The camera loves her face.

Extended action scenes in the jungle include a very nasty, slimy attack by giant insects and other disgusting creatures. There is a big battle scene between Kong and three Tyrannosaurus Rexs. Strangely, though, the original was more believable than the remake. The action in the remake is so over-the-top it damages the film's credibility. One scene has a group of men running in the middle of a pack of charging dinosaurs. The only reason the men are not mashed flat by the running dinosaurs is because the dinosaurs don't exist. The men are running in front of a green screen upon which the dinosaurs are added at a later date (a DVD has already been released which explains how all the effects are done). This particular effect is a little too obvious, and so is the attack by insects and various other nasty things, which also obviously don't exist. A scene where a man wildly shoots a machine gun and miraculously hits the attacking creatures without hitting any people to which they are closely attached is absurd. This kind of buffoonery makes the digital effects in the shot pretty obvious. Jackson's philosophy about digital action shots in this film is that more is better than enough. The action scenes set in New York are much more effective because there is not such close contact between real people and digital creatures.

The result is a mixed bag of some very effective action scenes and others that are not believable. The relationship between Darrow and Kong is more believable than the one between her and Jack Driscoll (played by Adrien Brody of “The Piano”), a playwrite turned action hero. Brody is a fine actor, but doesn't make a convincing romantic lead, or action hero, in this film. He is miscast. Bruce Baxter (played by Kyle Chandler) has a character that is written very inconsistently. At first he is a coward, then he is heroic, then he is once again cowardly. The crazed director, Carl Denham (Jack Black of “School of Rock”) is enigmatic as well, at times bordering on psychotic. The same character in the original film was more believable. Black is a fine actor, but is not quite right for this role. Overall, the new King Kong is not as good as the original, but much better than the 1976 remake, and most other Kong ripoffs. Parts of the story are better than the original film, others are worse. The film is also excessively long at over 3 hours. It should have been cut shorter by at least 20 minutes. This film rates a B.

Click here for links to places to buy or rent this movie in video and/or DVD format, or to buy the soundtrack, posters, books, even used videos, games, electronics and lots of other stuff. I suggest you shop at least two of these places before buying anything. Prices seem to vary continuously. For more information on this film, click on this link to The Internet Movie Database. Type in the name of the movie in the search box and press enter. You will be able to find background information on the film, the actors, and links to much more information.

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Copyright © 2005 Robert Roten. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.
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Robert Roten can be reached via e-mail at my last name at lariat dot org. [Mailer button: image of letter and envelope]

(If you e-mail me with a question about this or any other movie or review, please mention the name of the movie you are asking the question about, otherwise I may have no way of knowing which film you are referring to)