More on the GIANT! MONKEY! MOVIE!
Dec. 17th, 2005 12:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiperAs promised, here are my more in-depth thoughts about Kong!
Having just recently seen the original movie, I am in a very good position to compare it against Peter Jackson's shiny new remake. From the opening Art Deco style credits to the very end, Peter's version is very faithful to the original--in spirit, in homages, and in being just plain cool.
I'll talk first about the things I didn't like, because there are only a few of them and I'd like to get them out of the way. Mostly, these fall into the category of "bits of the movie that went on for too long", and mostly, these were in the middle third of the film on Skull Island. There were just too many sequences involving the gigantic denizens of the island almost eating Ann and/or the rescue party led by Jack, and honestly, I could have done without the entire sequence in the Pit of Large Icky Wriggly Insects. Especially the part where Andy Serkis gets head-glommed by giant leeches. Say it with me, folks: EEEEEEEEEW!
Also, all the bits with Hayes and Jimmy just failed to quite gel for me. I understand the arc those two characters were on, and it did lead well into Jimmy actually being a surprisingly good shot. But all the exchanges between them just felt a little bit too rough for me, and I'm not entirely sure whether I would have wanted less of their presence or more to make me like those characters better. Especially since we never see Jimmy in the third act.
But that's about all I didn't like. Let's get to the good stuff.
First and foremost, Naomi Watts as Ann Darrow was absolutely radiant. I loved watching her tap dance, juggle, and do backflips to try to get Kong into a better mood. She had an incredibly expressive face, and conveyed acres of emotions without uttering a single word, especially to the ape. She was equally effective in her scenes with Jack, and I loved seeing her with him--here, again, she did a fabulous job of conveying much with expression and not too much dialogue. And I loved Ann's bravery and pluck, especially when she had the presence of mind to play "dead" every time Kong looked her way as she was trying to crawl away from him.
But I've said it before and I'll say it again--even in this day and age where most screaming females come across as irritating, I do not fault her in the slightest for screaming as the natives were sacrificing her. 'Cause y'know what? If I'm about to be sacrificed by a tribe of insane, degenerate natives to a twenty-five-foot ape, I'll scream too! And in the finest Fay Wray tradition, she is a champion screamer.
Speaking of Adrien Brody as Jack--this was the first time I'd ever seen Mr. Brody in a movie that I can recall, and damn, he was good. I loved that he isn't handsome in the typical leading man way, and yet Jackson absolutely filmed him as if he were. I love, love, LOVED that they turned Jack Driscoll from a sailor into a playwright, opening the way for Brody to show us a quiet intellectual who was every inch a hero, both mentally and physically. I loved watching him get smacked upside the head with being smitten with Ann, and meeting Ms. Watts every step of the way with conveying acres of emotion with his face. I especially loved the bit where they're filming Ann on the deck and Jack's standing there behind Carl just gazing at her with his heart right there in his eyes, and how Jack moved like a man possessed every time he was trying to get to Ann in peril. And that final moment when he comes up to the very top of the Empire State Building and Ann turns to him and throws herself into his arms and they just cling to one another... beautiful.
But as long as I'm handing out kudos for amazingly expressive work, the biggest props have to go to Andy Serkis as the Mighty Monkey himself. I absolutely loved how Kong moved--like a real gorilla, and blindingly fast besides. I loved how he made the transition from slinging Ann around almost indifferently (and I have to wonder how the HELL Ann survived that--did I mention I also loved all the point-of-view shots that dizzingly conveyed the feel of being slung around by a giant ape?) to realizing that she is another creature, albeit very tiny compared to him. I loved his moments of playfulness and humor, like his reactions to Ann's hijinx, and the surprised pleasure of discovering that it's fun to slide around on a frozen pond in Central Park (MONKEY SLIDEY!). I loved watching him poke at Ann's (apparently) limp form, trying to get her to move some more. I loved how she screamed "WAIT!" and he snatched her up and slung her up to ride on his shoulder. I loved how he cuddled her on his arm as they both slept. I loved how he kept snatching up blonde women in New York and then hurling them aside as he realized that they weren't HIS woman. I loved how he visibly recognized Jack in New York in the theater--that entire look of fury condensed into "YOU!" as he ripped the hell out of the balcony in his effort to reach the tiny primate who'd stolen his woman, and again as Jack swiped the taxi and drove right up to him to get his attention. And I loved how he gazed with a palpable loneliness out across the stunning vista of the island as well as the equally stunning vista of New York--makes me wonder what the heck happened to the other giant apes on Skull Island and how long they took to die off.
I'm not entirely sure what I think about Jack Black as Carl Denham. I've never particularly cared for Jack Black, and I think he was totally outclassed by Watts and Brody, but on the other hand there were bits where he nailed Denham--any shot where he was showing the audience his obsessive, single-minded focus on getting everything on Skull Island on film was excellent. Half of me really loves how he fervently vowed to devote the film's proceeds to the wife and children of both of the guys from his crew who died on the island. The first time I almost believed he was sincere; the second time made you realize that "oh yeah, this guy's slime, he's just saying this to make the gesture".
I liked Thomas Kretschmann as the captain of the Venture. I got a great sense off of him as a guy somewhat on the shady side but who's nevertheless fundamentally decent--though I wish we could have seen him in the third act in New York, to get an idea of how he reacted to Kong on display on Broadway.
Kyle Chandler was fabulous as Denham's smarmy leading man Bruce Baxter. I loved how he put up posters of all his movies in his tiny cabin on the Venture, and his outrage that someone had defaced all of them--which turned into thoughtful preening in front of the mirror as he tried out the concept of having a mustache. ;) I liked his sounding off to Jack about how heroes in "real life" didn't look like him (and how Jack didn't actually say anything, and yet managed to convey his contempt regardless), and how he stomped back off to the ship. I also liked how, surprisingly, he was the catalyst for the rescue party--just showing that he had at least a hint of decency, which was interesting considering that he also cheerfully let Denham bill him as Ann's "heroic rescuer" in the theater.
Which leads me into the two obvious homages to the original film that I caught (there may have been more, but these are the ones I noticed right off). When Denham was filming an exchange of lines between Ann and Bruce, I loved how Bruce's lines were actually calling back to Driscoll's actual lines in the original, about how women on board a ship were a "nuisance". Hee. And I liked how the "native dance" number in the theater was a big ol' visual callback to the original in the costumes of the dancers, especially the ones in the apelike outfits. Very cool.
I loved the scary diversity of the creatures on Skull Island--even if I think that the sequence with the insects was too much. The brontosaurs, absolutely fabulous. The sequence with the raptors terrorizing the brontos into a stampede, very neat--especially with how Jack's party had to weave and dodge through bronto legs because they had no hope of outrunning the herd, and how a few of them got squished as a result. And this island was a way scarier place than the island in the original, too. I loved how there were many more ruins all over the island, more of a sign that there was an island-wide civilization in times past, and how the descendants of that ancient people were huddled in the shattered ruins outside the wall. Way more so than with the original, I found myself wondering exactly what the hell happened there, and how a human civilization capable of building such things could have once co-existed with the gigantic creatures on the island. (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
spazzkat, solarbird, and I actually wondered whether, back when there were more Kongs, the Kongs kept the dinosaurs at bay and the humans actually had room for a civilization... but had to start retreating as the dinos took over more and more.)
As for the natives--these people were outright creepy, yep yep yep. The first kid we saw looked like her head was about to start doing 360's on her neck. All the young women shaking with their eyes rolling back in their heads during the sacrifice ritual--brrr. Very good portrayal of a people in the throes of superstitious fervor there. And the ancient crone who kept screaming at Ann, oh my yes, she was creepy. I can totally see Ann having nightmares for years after about that face screaming "TORE KONG!" at her.
And there was plenty of nightmare fodder in the dinos and bugs as well. I mean, GEEZ, Ann could not turn around on that island without running into a new terrifying threat. If it wasn't giant centipedes (say it again with me, folks: EEEEEEEEEEEW), it was meat-eating dinosaurs. She evaded one T-Rex (and kudos again to our plucky heroine for realizing that if she just lay still, the T-Rex couldn't see her) only to roll over and FIND ANOTHER ONE. YEEK!
Assolarbird observed, Skull Island is the worst place in the history of there being PLACES.
But you have to admit, Kong vs. not one, not two, but THREE, count 'em, THREE T-Rexes, was absolutely kickass. You DO NOT fuck with Kong on his home turf.spazzkat was imagining how Peter Jackson must have thought this through, how people have seen the T-Rex thing already, so he just HAD to raise the stakes to THREE T-Rexes. But we still get the fabulous shot of Kong grabbing hold of the T-Rex's jaws and ripping its entire head apart--and then PLAYING WITH THE JAWS to make sure it's actually dead. You didn't see that in the original. NICE touch.
Onward to New York!
I loved how Ann and Jack refused to have anything to do with the display of the captive Kong--something you don't realize until you see that the actress being "sacrificed" is not in fact Ann. And you can tell that Kong is annoyed it's not her, too.
I loved the look of dawning realization on Jack's face as he's watching his own play and remembering telling Ann that he wrote it for her, and listening to his own dialogue giving him huge stone hints that he needs to go to her. And how he just gets up and goes. And I loved that as Denham goes into his spiel about a "surprise guest" in the theater, you see an instant of reaction out of Jack--but how he then catches himself as he realizes that they've actually staged this for Bruce's entrance, and he sort of rolls his eyes with this "yeah yeah yeah" kind of look. And how he realizes pretty much the instant that Kong starts looking pissed that there is going to be Trouble, and tries to get people to start leaving.
I loved how Kong kept protectively setting Ann down out of the way on top of the Empire State building, once the planes started closing in. It made you absolutely believe that he knew she was small and breakable and that he didn't want her to get hurt.
And oh my, the shots of Kong beating his chest on the very top of the building. WELL DONE.
And Kong tapping his chest as Ann had done to signify "beautiful"--and Ann's blossoming look of realization as she clues in that he is in his own way intelligent. NICE.
Kong grabbing hold of one plane and THROWING IT INTO ANOTHER--NEAT.
And the planes swinging around to shoot him from the back--so they wouldn't hit Ann. You don't even see it, but you hear it, and the expressive twitch of Kong's mighty body shows him taking the fatal blows. And that last shot of the light going out of his eyes just before he falls off the building and plummets to the sidewalk far below--sniff!
All in all, a fabulous movie experience. Highly recommended. See it on as big a screen as possible with the best possible sound. Well done again, Mr. Jackson. Well done indeed!
Having just recently seen the original movie, I am in a very good position to compare it against Peter Jackson's shiny new remake. From the opening Art Deco style credits to the very end, Peter's version is very faithful to the original--in spirit, in homages, and in being just plain cool.
I'll talk first about the things I didn't like, because there are only a few of them and I'd like to get them out of the way. Mostly, these fall into the category of "bits of the movie that went on for too long", and mostly, these were in the middle third of the film on Skull Island. There were just too many sequences involving the gigantic denizens of the island almost eating Ann and/or the rescue party led by Jack, and honestly, I could have done without the entire sequence in the Pit of Large Icky Wriggly Insects. Especially the part where Andy Serkis gets head-glommed by giant leeches. Say it with me, folks: EEEEEEEEEW!
Also, all the bits with Hayes and Jimmy just failed to quite gel for me. I understand the arc those two characters were on, and it did lead well into Jimmy actually being a surprisingly good shot. But all the exchanges between them just felt a little bit too rough for me, and I'm not entirely sure whether I would have wanted less of their presence or more to make me like those characters better. Especially since we never see Jimmy in the third act.
But that's about all I didn't like. Let's get to the good stuff.
First and foremost, Naomi Watts as Ann Darrow was absolutely radiant. I loved watching her tap dance, juggle, and do backflips to try to get Kong into a better mood. She had an incredibly expressive face, and conveyed acres of emotions without uttering a single word, especially to the ape. She was equally effective in her scenes with Jack, and I loved seeing her with him--here, again, she did a fabulous job of conveying much with expression and not too much dialogue. And I loved Ann's bravery and pluck, especially when she had the presence of mind to play "dead" every time Kong looked her way as she was trying to crawl away from him.
But I've said it before and I'll say it again--even in this day and age where most screaming females come across as irritating, I do not fault her in the slightest for screaming as the natives were sacrificing her. 'Cause y'know what? If I'm about to be sacrificed by a tribe of insane, degenerate natives to a twenty-five-foot ape, I'll scream too! And in the finest Fay Wray tradition, she is a champion screamer.
Speaking of Adrien Brody as Jack--this was the first time I'd ever seen Mr. Brody in a movie that I can recall, and damn, he was good. I loved that he isn't handsome in the typical leading man way, and yet Jackson absolutely filmed him as if he were. I love, love, LOVED that they turned Jack Driscoll from a sailor into a playwright, opening the way for Brody to show us a quiet intellectual who was every inch a hero, both mentally and physically. I loved watching him get smacked upside the head with being smitten with Ann, and meeting Ms. Watts every step of the way with conveying acres of emotion with his face. I especially loved the bit where they're filming Ann on the deck and Jack's standing there behind Carl just gazing at her with his heart right there in his eyes, and how Jack moved like a man possessed every time he was trying to get to Ann in peril. And that final moment when he comes up to the very top of the Empire State Building and Ann turns to him and throws herself into his arms and they just cling to one another... beautiful.
But as long as I'm handing out kudos for amazingly expressive work, the biggest props have to go to Andy Serkis as the Mighty Monkey himself. I absolutely loved how Kong moved--like a real gorilla, and blindingly fast besides. I loved how he made the transition from slinging Ann around almost indifferently (and I have to wonder how the HELL Ann survived that--did I mention I also loved all the point-of-view shots that dizzingly conveyed the feel of being slung around by a giant ape?) to realizing that she is another creature, albeit very tiny compared to him. I loved his moments of playfulness and humor, like his reactions to Ann's hijinx, and the surprised pleasure of discovering that it's fun to slide around on a frozen pond in Central Park (MONKEY SLIDEY!). I loved watching him poke at Ann's (apparently) limp form, trying to get her to move some more. I loved how she screamed "WAIT!" and he snatched her up and slung her up to ride on his shoulder. I loved how he cuddled her on his arm as they both slept. I loved how he kept snatching up blonde women in New York and then hurling them aside as he realized that they weren't HIS woman. I loved how he visibly recognized Jack in New York in the theater--that entire look of fury condensed into "YOU!" as he ripped the hell out of the balcony in his effort to reach the tiny primate who'd stolen his woman, and again as Jack swiped the taxi and drove right up to him to get his attention. And I loved how he gazed with a palpable loneliness out across the stunning vista of the island as well as the equally stunning vista of New York--makes me wonder what the heck happened to the other giant apes on Skull Island and how long they took to die off.
I'm not entirely sure what I think about Jack Black as Carl Denham. I've never particularly cared for Jack Black, and I think he was totally outclassed by Watts and Brody, but on the other hand there were bits where he nailed Denham--any shot where he was showing the audience his obsessive, single-minded focus on getting everything on Skull Island on film was excellent. Half of me really loves how he fervently vowed to devote the film's proceeds to the wife and children of both of the guys from his crew who died on the island. The first time I almost believed he was sincere; the second time made you realize that "oh yeah, this guy's slime, he's just saying this to make the gesture".
I liked Thomas Kretschmann as the captain of the Venture. I got a great sense off of him as a guy somewhat on the shady side but who's nevertheless fundamentally decent--though I wish we could have seen him in the third act in New York, to get an idea of how he reacted to Kong on display on Broadway.
Kyle Chandler was fabulous as Denham's smarmy leading man Bruce Baxter. I loved how he put up posters of all his movies in his tiny cabin on the Venture, and his outrage that someone had defaced all of them--which turned into thoughtful preening in front of the mirror as he tried out the concept of having a mustache. ;) I liked his sounding off to Jack about how heroes in "real life" didn't look like him (and how Jack didn't actually say anything, and yet managed to convey his contempt regardless), and how he stomped back off to the ship. I also liked how, surprisingly, he was the catalyst for the rescue party--just showing that he had at least a hint of decency, which was interesting considering that he also cheerfully let Denham bill him as Ann's "heroic rescuer" in the theater.
Which leads me into the two obvious homages to the original film that I caught (there may have been more, but these are the ones I noticed right off). When Denham was filming an exchange of lines between Ann and Bruce, I loved how Bruce's lines were actually calling back to Driscoll's actual lines in the original, about how women on board a ship were a "nuisance". Hee. And I liked how the "native dance" number in the theater was a big ol' visual callback to the original in the costumes of the dancers, especially the ones in the apelike outfits. Very cool.
I loved the scary diversity of the creatures on Skull Island--even if I think that the sequence with the insects was too much. The brontosaurs, absolutely fabulous. The sequence with the raptors terrorizing the brontos into a stampede, very neat--especially with how Jack's party had to weave and dodge through bronto legs because they had no hope of outrunning the herd, and how a few of them got squished as a result. And this island was a way scarier place than the island in the original, too. I loved how there were many more ruins all over the island, more of a sign that there was an island-wide civilization in times past, and how the descendants of that ancient people were huddled in the shattered ruins outside the wall. Way more so than with the original, I found myself wondering exactly what the hell happened there, and how a human civilization capable of building such things could have once co-existed with the gigantic creatures on the island. (
spazzkat, solarbird, and I actually wondered whether, back when there were more Kongs, the Kongs kept the dinosaurs at bay and the humans actually had room for a civilization... but had to start retreating as the dinos took over more and more.)As for the natives--these people were outright creepy, yep yep yep. The first kid we saw looked like her head was about to start doing 360's on her neck. All the young women shaking with their eyes rolling back in their heads during the sacrifice ritual--brrr. Very good portrayal of a people in the throes of superstitious fervor there. And the ancient crone who kept screaming at Ann, oh my yes, she was creepy. I can totally see Ann having nightmares for years after about that face screaming "TORE KONG!" at her.
And there was plenty of nightmare fodder in the dinos and bugs as well. I mean, GEEZ, Ann could not turn around on that island without running into a new terrifying threat. If it wasn't giant centipedes (say it again with me, folks: EEEEEEEEEEEW), it was meat-eating dinosaurs. She evaded one T-Rex (and kudos again to our plucky heroine for realizing that if she just lay still, the T-Rex couldn't see her) only to roll over and FIND ANOTHER ONE. YEEK!
As
solarbird observed, Skull Island is the worst place in the history of there being PLACES.But you have to admit, Kong vs. not one, not two, but THREE, count 'em, THREE T-Rexes, was absolutely kickass. You DO NOT fuck with Kong on his home turf.
spazzkat was imagining how Peter Jackson must have thought this through, how people have seen the T-Rex thing already, so he just HAD to raise the stakes to THREE T-Rexes. But we still get the fabulous shot of Kong grabbing hold of the T-Rex's jaws and ripping its entire head apart--and then PLAYING WITH THE JAWS to make sure it's actually dead. You didn't see that in the original. NICE touch.Onward to New York!
I loved how Ann and Jack refused to have anything to do with the display of the captive Kong--something you don't realize until you see that the actress being "sacrificed" is not in fact Ann. And you can tell that Kong is annoyed it's not her, too.
I loved the look of dawning realization on Jack's face as he's watching his own play and remembering telling Ann that he wrote it for her, and listening to his own dialogue giving him huge stone hints that he needs to go to her. And how he just gets up and goes. And I loved that as Denham goes into his spiel about a "surprise guest" in the theater, you see an instant of reaction out of Jack--but how he then catches himself as he realizes that they've actually staged this for Bruce's entrance, and he sort of rolls his eyes with this "yeah yeah yeah" kind of look. And how he realizes pretty much the instant that Kong starts looking pissed that there is going to be Trouble, and tries to get people to start leaving.
I loved how Kong kept protectively setting Ann down out of the way on top of the Empire State building, once the planes started closing in. It made you absolutely believe that he knew she was small and breakable and that he didn't want her to get hurt.
And oh my, the shots of Kong beating his chest on the very top of the building. WELL DONE.
And Kong tapping his chest as Ann had done to signify "beautiful"--and Ann's blossoming look of realization as she clues in that he is in his own way intelligent. NICE.
Kong grabbing hold of one plane and THROWING IT INTO ANOTHER--NEAT.
And the planes swinging around to shoot him from the back--so they wouldn't hit Ann. You don't even see it, but you hear it, and the expressive twitch of Kong's mighty body shows him taking the fatal blows. And that last shot of the light going out of his eyes just before he falls off the building and plummets to the sidewalk far below--sniff!
All in all, a fabulous movie experience. Highly recommended. See it on as big a screen as possible with the best possible sound. Well done again, Mr. Jackson. Well done indeed!
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no subject
Date: 2005-12-17 09:14 pm (UTC)i did like all the skeletal remains in kong's cave-with-balcony-view. without being in your face about it, it makes it clear that he's the last of a band (or whatever the collective noun is for fucking huge apes).
no subject
Date: 2005-12-18 05:57 pm (UTC)And yeah, the bones and skulls were a great visual touch, which helped lead me to wonder things about the history of the island that I hadn't gotten out of the original. Such as, if all the other Kongs have been dead long enough to leave bare bones, I wonder what the hell killed them. If Kong's battles with the dinos and other critters on Skull Island are any sign, I'm not sure what could have taken 'em! And I wonder how old Kong is, too.
RE: More on the GIANT! MONKEY! MOVIE!
Date: 2005-12-27 12:23 am (UTC)I know you've read it in some of my other entries, but King Kong -- the original -- is one of my all-time favorite movies and has been since I was a little girl and saw it on TV for the first time. That was when I was scared of Kong, just like I was the Frankenstein monster...until I realized that he didn't want to be in NY, didn't ask to be in NY...and now every time I see it I just cry. There's this shot of him in the old one where I'm pretty sure he reaches down as if to try to touch Ann a final time when the airplane bullets strike him the last blow and he falls....Of course by then I'm a total blubbering mess...which is probably what I'll be when I see this new one at the movies.
And I think you've expressed what I've heard from other critics: now they completely understand why the Spider Pit scene was cut from the original! LOL Their belief was that it did nothing to move the film along. Sounds like all we get is an EWWWWWWWWWWWWW fest! Ewwwwwwwwwwww. LOL
Not a Jack Black fan either but sounds like the Denham role might work for him....Not a Brody fan either -- I mean I don't hate him or anything but he does nothing for me (and my mother telling me about him lip locking with Halle Berry at the Oscars when she gave him his best actor statue sort of left me shell-shocked LOL)...and to be honest, when I saw him in The Pianist I thought it was a good performance but I was rather underwhelmed by him...and if Thomas Kretschmann is the one who played the Nazi officer who befriends Brody's character, then he was the one that made me sit up and take notice!
Well, count me into the lot of those who wondered about the history of Skull Island. I mean you have this great wall built by what was obviously a very advanced civilization...and now the descendants have developed from some high form (I see them advanced in mathematics and architecture, etc like the ancient Egyptians) to seemingly barely scraping by and worshipping/fearing this force behind the wall...this Kong. I still look at the original and wonder. And since the original spawned a sequel called Son of Kong you wonder where's Mrs. Kong LOL and was Little Kong (as Denham calls him) worshipped even more than his dad because he was a huge albino ape! And why had time stood still on Skull Island...or was it inevitable that the dinos and giant apes take control in the end, pushing man further and further back behind the giant wall. (Sorry -- rambling about thoughts I've had for years).
I have to tell you one thing: I loved your description about Ann and her screaming. Fay Wray is the champion screamer of ALL TIME! Every time I hear a woman scream in the movies I compare her to Fay, cause up until now, nobody's beaten her (not Kate Capshaw in Temple of Doom or the wife of the 1950s version of The Fly or Jessica Lange in the 1970s King Kong *gag*)...although The Bride of Frankenstein sure came close! LOL I think Naomi Watts may now be a close runner-up to Fay's crown, and how perfect that she's playing the same character! But I'm with you: if I was being sacrificed to a 25 foot ape by crazy natives, screw feminism. I'm screaming my friggin' head off and ain't nobody going to stop me! LOL
Great review. Will take it all into consideration.