kong

Saw King Kong last night. I must say that I quite enjoyed it. It would have been much more enjoyable if there were about a half an hour less of it, but one can overlook this because of the sheer spectacle of the movie. Peter Jackson is one of the best technical directors in the biz with more tricks up his sleeve than Judge Stone of Night Court. His dialogue is pretty lousy and his social commentary trends towards the ham-fisted, but nobody goes to see King Kong for the screen-writers. Michael Kaufmann, this is not. One goes to see this movie to see Kong climb the empire state building, battle dinosaurs and cause general havoc. The action, once it starts is amazing, non-stop, imaginative, terrifying and giddyfying until pretty much the end of the movie. It's an adventure that Hollywood seems to have forgotten how to make.
The movie is truly beautiful to behold and had the audience gasping with delight and amazement. The scene with the leeches gave me a case of the heebie-jeebies of the 10th degree. Those images are burned in my mind, and for that Peter Jackson, I hope you are happy, you sick, sick man. Visually and kinetically, the movie succeeds on all fronts. It doesn't pack quite the emotional wallop that some people said it did, but I was still quite moved when he dies. Not because of the love story, because hell, how is Naomi Watts, who cries and strikes Doe Eyed poses on command, to explain to her parents that she loves a 30 ft. gorilla? But, what is emotionally affecting is that Kong died fighting, full of pride and anger, even though one could tell he was tired of life and tired of fighting. The worst scenes in the movie are those of him shackled and helpless. I suppose we simply have an innate desire to see things of power and agility able to exercise these traits. I don't know why really. I'm not a bleeding heart, all animals should run free, singing "Lesbian sea-gull" kind of guy. See the movie and you'll understand the pathos.
One final note, I can see James Walcott's point about inherent racism in the natives, but only to a certain point. First off, their features seemed to be both Caucasian and African and cartoonish manifestations of them. Furthermore, would it be believable to travel to an island somewhere south of Sumatra in the Pacific Ocean and find an island full of albino Norweigans? It would be silly and we all know it. And one can't remove the natives for then the movie makes no sense. So, I think Jackson attempted to distort them so much and to give them rather ambiguous features that only somebody desperately wanting to find racism in everything Hollywood produces could find it. James Walcott certainly fits that bill.
So, all in all 3.5 stars out of 4.

PS I think Jack Black was pretty good, despite what most people say. It's not easy to pull off a likeable sleazebag and he acquitted himself nicely.