Review for King Kong (2005)

Before I comment on the film, I have a confession. I missed it at the cinema because the trailers did nothing for me. Neither has the original film tempted me, so when the DVD came round to review I found myself wondering if I was missing out on something of a classic. Three disks... that could mean this Special Extended Edition could be as long as Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings!

If you don't know the full story, you could probably sum it all up with "Big Ape stands atop Empire State Building with blonde woman." - The film starts in an impressively realistic 1930's New York. Poverty and opportunity are perfectly portrayed, and within the first few minutes my attention was gripped. Jack Black plays a fantastic (albeit one dimensional) film director, obsessed with getting his current film completed to make much needed money for distributors. Naomi Watts is an out-of-work stage actress, and the two seems to fall into each other quite by accident.

To cut this (very long) story down to size, they end up on a ship with filmwriter Adrien Brody heading towards a mysterious island on a map that Jack Black found in his back pocket. Well, not really, but he probably bought it from some voodoo witch off the Universal Pictures backlot. When they get to this aptly named Skull Island, the truly frightening natives are very welcoming, and beat them all with sticks and rocks. They get separated, and Naomi unfortunately gets tied up to a sacrificial bridge and lowered towards Kong's dinner plate on the far side of a chasm. Kong appears, and although you only see little pieces of his massive frame at this point you can't fail to be impressed with the quality of the FX. Instead of swallowing her in one mouthful, Kong decides to snatch her away to the far side of the island, where unbeknowst to the others they begin to explore a gentle friendship (Planet of the Apes anyone?) - Cue the ship crew to launch a rescue operation.

As they adventure over the island they come face to face with many prehistoric creatures. Jack is still solidly in his role, going after "the shot" at all costs. Whilst his shipmates are being dragged into a lake by a scary leviathan, Jack sits back with mouth agawp slowly turning the crank handle on his camera catching it all on film. The Missus sharply commented that it was very Jurassic Park, and bang went some of the special feeling to the realisation I'd seen some of this before. Maybe I was having flashbacks to the fights between Godzilla and Megatron or whoever. After that, I couldn't get excited about the monster-on-monster action.

Anyway, they rescue her eventually, and whilst making their escape are pursued by Kong who is furious that his girlfriend has been taken from him. Luckily, the crew have a supply of Chloroform that they can use to subdue the beast. Although how they manage to load the beast onto the ship to bring him back to New York for a stage show is beyond me, but somehow they manage it.

Then the unthinkable happens; During the first stage show to a packed out theatre, King Kong manages to break his bonds and goes on a rampage, smashing cars and trams before Naomi stumbles back onto the scene where they flee together to the top of the Empire State Building. Unfortunately, Kong is no match for machine guns mounted on biplanes who circle him and slowly chip away his endurance before he slips of the edge with a final weeping glance at his girl...

King Kong has many things going for it, but a couple that unfortunately spoil it for me. On the plus side it's a great cast who act their roles convincingly, the sets are superb, Kong is facially animated very well and the other special effects are flawless if not unexpected. On the down side it's about an hour too long and suffers from a few too many goofs. However, all in all the last line of the film made it sour for me. "Oh no, it wasn't the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast." Actually, that's rubbish. If the bullets didn't kill him, his 38 ton body weight falling from 381m would be hitting the ground at 43.3metres per second. Let's just say King Kong Pancake.

It's not that I didn't enjoy the film, but I felt it had dragged and frankly I wasn't bothered about any of the DVD extras as I might have been with other releases. After mulling over various factors I'd have to say I enjoyed the first half of the film more than the second, and I guess that goes to show I'll enjoy watching actors do their thing rather than computer generated imagery try and mirror them.

by: Dave Lowry