Country and Year: USA (2005)
Director: Peter Jackson
Starring: Adrian Brody, Jack Black, Naomi Watts
Runtime: 187 mins

Review by: Wade Bowen
Rating 4 out of 4 stars (great)

Ever since attending the press screening in New York, I’ve been
obsessed with King Kong. In an unhealthy type of way perhaps, but it’s
all I’ve been able to think about, even when I try to go to sleep.
While waiting for the general release date I’ve been reading reviews
online and then getting annoyed at the reviewers. It’s a long movie.
That’s what everyone complains about. You read a lot of stuff saying
it’s disjointed, but I don’t really buy that either. To me, a movie
ends up too long when by the end of it you’re bored and waiting for
something to happen. If the end of King Kong were like the beginning
then, yes, the movie might be too long. But it’s not.

I think my whole problem with the reviews has more to do with the standards this film is being held up to. A lot of critics seem to be going in with a preconceived ideal of what this film is supposed to be. They fault the movie for the long character driven first act which detracts from the raucous action adventure movie that it should be. This is a film that has everything. Some might claim that this is overstepping the bounds of what is acceptable in an effects-driven block-buster, but I would have to disagree. Keep in mind however, that I am one of those people that counted down the days until release of each of the LoTR films.

Maybe for that first viewing at the screening I was just in a very receptive state, ready to love anything. Maybe on my second viewing it won’t be as successful, but on that first viewing something affected me. I found myself starting to tear up at certain moments. This is what sets Jackson apart from a director like say, Stephen Spielberg (whom he’s getting a lot of comparisons to lately). Aside from all the “adventure” and action you get from a movie like Raiders of the Lost Ark, or Jurassic Park, in King Kong you also get the emotional content, which is as important to the film as the action. Peter Jackson could have made a movie that critics would be hailing as “better than Jurassic Park,” and that movie would have been well below the 3 hour running time, but his goals are something more than making a “fun” movie. With Spielberg you get the impression that the Emotional films he makes are the ones that he’s invested his soul in. After making the Lord of the Rings, Jackson doesn’t seem to make that distinction. This is why King Kong is 3 hours long.

Jackson wants you to actually care about these characters. Not just the one’s we know the film can’t do without, but even specific members of filmmaker Carl Denham’s entourage, or sailors aboard the ship. To actually care about these guys it takes time (well over 45 minutes before we even get to Skull Island actually). We could get through the movie without getting to know the first mate or the stowaway, but we do get to know them, which makes it that much more meaningful when… well I don’t want to ruin anything. I would even argue that these characters aren’t as extraneous as some reviewers would have you think. Within the relationships of the minor characters you can see thematic elements that mirror some of the themes explored within the interactions of the “major” characters.

Another thing you’ll hear a lot about is “pacing” problems. I’m not even really sure what “pacing problems” are. I’d suppose those would be problems that serve to remove one from what’s going on onscreen. Maybe I won’t be so awestruck and ready to like everything the second time but I think this reference to “pacing problems” within King Kong is more of a copout, grabbed at without thinking, than anything else.

The three acts of the movie are pretty apparent to anyone watching; they’re separated by location. You’ve got New York Without Kong, Skull Island, and then New York With Kong. I won’t go into specific details since we all know the basic plot: girl goes to island, finds ape, ape gets girl, ape loses girl, and at the end ape dies at the top of the Empire State Building. I was expecting maybe that since this iconic climax was so important, that the movie might spend a lot of time trying to set this up getting Kong to the top of the building, but that’s not the case.

Here’s how the movie broke down for me: As the stakes get higher, the pacing gets faster. At the beginning of the movie things could be said to drag a bit as we get introduced to the characters and the action proceeds at a leisurely pace. Then we get to Skull Island and BAM, events start unfolding really fast, you get to see what these characters you’ve spent so much time with are getting themselves into. Everything escalates until finally Kong is subdued. This is the point where I began to suspect that we might have “pacing problems,” with Jackson spending all this time to show us how they transport Kong, but Peter Jackson realizes just how unnecessary all that is. It’s only filler. We KNOW that they’re going to get Kong back to New York; the details of how they do that are really inconsequential. So why waste the audience’s time in such a long movie showing that? Peter Jackson has a good answer: Don’t. The logistics of how they transport Kong can be explained well enough by information attained earlier in the movie. Pay close attention to one of those sweeping aerial cgi shots of the S.S Venture.

Once back in New York things get even more hairy for those lucky enough to make it this far. We all know how this is going to end. And as more comes to be at stake, events proceed at an even faster pace until, by the end of the movie, one can notice that less time has passed in this New York Without Kong than any other location. Which is good, because Skull Island really is the coolest locale in the entire movie; it makes sense to spend the most time there.

Let people complain about the acting. With any movie you’re going to have some pretentious acting student somewhere complaining about how a certain character wasn’t believable. You’ll hear that about Jack Black more than anyone else in this movie. “He’s just being Jack Black throughout the whole movie; he delivers every line with a smirk.” Sure he’s being Jack Black in the movie. Peter Jackson re-wrote the part to fit him. There were a couple of moments where I was pretty affected by his performance, and then after that he’d deliver something in a way that you don’t quite believe what the character is saying. I’m not sure that reviewers are noticing that you’re NOT supposed to believe what the character is saying. Carl Denham really wants to mean what he’s saying, but he’s lying even to himself. I didn’t see it as Jack Black being untruthful, but as an example of using everything about an actor to flesh out a role. I could go on a while about my problems with the notion of “good acting” being an actor putting on a persona radically different than who he is, but I won’t.

If good acting is adopting a radically different persona, however, then Andy Serkis may be the greatest actor alive, though some of that credit must of course go to the Weta effects team. Probably the best compliment to them would be to point out that I never thought to remark on the subtlety of emotion expressed through a gorilla mask of ones and zeros until well after the film was over. The relationship between Kong and Anne Darrow is easily where the emotional core of the film lies. Naomi Watts does a good job holding up her side of that bargain, as well.

Okay, that’s enough about any emotions in this movie. If I ever became overwrought and susceptible to melodrama during my viewing, it was only because the spectacle and scope of what was going on onscreen rendered me completely stupefied. Character development is fine, but it never gets in the way or detracts from action sequences that are relentless in their intensity. Jackson gives little room for anyone to critique “well, it would have been cooler if he’d done this.” People are already talking about the T-Rex fight going down in history as one of those Great Scenes. Anyone who can go through the movie caring less about the lives of the characters is still likely to walk out of the theatre feeling like he’s gotten his money’s worth.