King Kong
By now, just about everyone has seen Peter Jackson’s masterful remake of ‘King Kong’. Any comments that I could add at this late date would be like peeing in the ocean. However I saw the film, and this is what I do here. I suppose I owe you my two cents.
Besides simply being a giant beast rampage movie, ‘Kong’ well earns its presence on this site with some really ooky scenes. The foreshadowing is as perfect as anything out of Lovecraft, and the ruins on the island, complete with skewered skulls on pikes, are beautifully eldritch. The “natives” (in actuality a degraded race of madmen, no relation to the advanced civilization which built the island’s towering structures) are amazingly terrifying. Though an action thriller rather than a horror film, ‘Kong’ more than delivers on the monsters. You’ll find dinosaurs to put Spielberg to shame, not to mention the giant bugs. Oy, the giant bugs. I can eat chicken wings while watching ‘The Evil Dead’, but the huge squirmy centipedes in this film had me cringing with disgust.
The tale is still touching even after all these long years, and the cast is simply excellent. The special effects are flawless, but then again you already knew that. Between bringing the notoriously unfilmable Tolkien trilogy to vibrant life, and creating perhaps the only remake ever on par with the original, I’m fully convinced that Peter Jackson could create a three hour version of ‘Peter Cottontail’ and make it magnificent.
I have but two small complaints. The opening montage which seeks to remind us that it really truly is the 1930s, is unneeded and more than a little goofy. Scenes of vaudeville skits, prohibition raids, and soup lines are cut together over an early jazz ditty; I half expected to see that Simpsons clip with Al Capone dancing the charleston on top of a flagpole. Secondly, the first act takes a little too long to get going, but it is used for character development so it’s not a big quibble.
Why the hell are you reading this review? I’m sure you’ve already seen it, and if you haven’t, go now! The hell are you waiting for?
9.0