King KongType: ActionLength: 187 minutesMPAA: PG-13Cast: Jack Black, Naomi Watts, Adrien BrodyDirector: Peter JacksonPlaying: Campus CinemaRating: * * *
It’s difficult to classify the genre for Peter Jackson’s newest visual accomplishment, King Kong.
It has action. It has drama.
It even has elements of horror.
But at its core, it seems King Kong is a scene piece – an homage to the original 1930s movie that captivated audiences.
Take the dialog, for example. Much of the conversation in the film is ripped straight from the original and serves to insert the audience back into a context that far predates the explosive shoot-em-up or compelling drama in the theater next door.
The language, as well as the characters, are old, worn and easily recognized — but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
It doesn’t make the viewer snicker at the corny portrayal of the seedy but good-hearted Captain Englehorn when writer Jack Driscoll approaches in the ship’s hold with an all-too-familiar warning of the dangers ahead.
Nor do patrons roll their eyes at Naomi Watts as she portrays the archetypal damsel in distress, who has more darkness inside than her sweet exterior shows.
These characters, by their very nature, will never be able to become any more deep than Frank Reicher or Fay Wray allowed them to be in 1933. This fact may turn away some viewers but sustain others.
One actor who seems exempt from this rule, however, is Andy Serkis, the source of the facial expressions and body movements of the mighty Kong.
Jackson used 132 sensors placed all over Serkis’ face to let the humanity of the beast shine through the stunning CGI shell, and it easily makes the ape the best actor in the film.
He was able to show what stop-motion, in the earlier half of the century, wasn’t able to – the soul of this monster.
Although computer animation was used to amazing effect with this feature of the film, it doesn’t achieve similar reactions for the rest of the movie.
Make no mistake. The scenery is stunning, an effigy of the heyday of the era that gave birth to some of the greatest films of all time. It’s amazing, beautiful and eye-catching. The details – from the windows of buildings to the rusty hull of the “Venture” – add depth to the story.
But in Jackson’s attempt to expand upon the firm foundation of the original, the extended scenes of battle between dinosaurs and Kong, grotesque displays of giant insects attacking the crew and drawn-out cuts of the lush jungle that is the ape’s home serve only to stretch the film past its breaking point.
The result is an audience looking for more complicated dialog than screams and grunts and a more developed plot that doesn’t make up for a lack of substance with flashy pictures.
In the end, King Kong is not a total failure. Beauty, action and nostalgia make it worth seeing once, but Jackson’s attempt to drag into 187 minutes what Merian Cooper accomplished in 100 will ultimately leave you wishing beauty would hurry up and kill the beast.
