Kong! Kong! Kong! Kong!

Outside of chanting the ape's name I'm not sure what else I can say about Peter Jackson's remake of King Kong. Perhaps I could also beat my chest and then run around the room with my arms up over my head while hooting out monkey noises but that doesn't translate well to the written page. Suffice to say, I dug the film.

Now don't get me wrong, my enjoyment of Jackson's remake in no way dilutes my love for the 1933 original. Kong is one of those indelible movie images that has become part of the world's consciousness. It's modern mythology enacted through the totem of a stop-motion puppet. Even those who have never seen the film know who Kong is and intuit a bit what he represents. Not only is any remake going to be judged against the original but the seventy plus years of cultural history that's built up around it as well.

Fortunately Peter Jackson loves Kong. He really, really loves Kong. I assumed he was being honest when he expressed his fondness for the original in pre-release interviews. But what cemented it for me was finding out that Jackson and the rest of his staff re-created the lost Spider Pit Sequence -a portion of the original film that was edited out after preview runs and has since been lost- using 1930's stop-motion technology. This entire side project was done because... I don't know, they're insane or something. Nevertheless, anyone who is so enamored with the original King Kong that they felt the need to make a professional fan film of it is a director and staff who are going to do their absolute best on any remake they attempt.

King Kong is a film about the inadvertent destruction caused by human folly, the loneliness and pain that comes from yearning for something that can never be, and a big freakin' gorilla whomping on dinosaurs. Truly a movie that has it all. For those of you who have been living under a rock for the past century or so, the plot to Kong is that struggling actress Ann Darrow [Naomi Watts] is talked into going on a sea cruise to film at the less than scenically named Skull Island. Upon arriving there she is promptly scooped up by Mr. Kong. Naturally, this does not turn out well. Apparently deciding that turnabout is fair play, film producer Carl Denham [Jack Black] monkey-naps Kong and lugs the giant ape back to New York. This, also, does not go well.

At 104 minutes, the 1933 version is a lean, mean monkey movie. The 184 minutes of the 2005 remake means that Jackson's version is a much more stately piece of simian cinema. Yes, the length is indulgent but how often do you get to remake King Kong? The enthusiasm and urge to make King Kong as big a movie as possible is understandable. Still, Jackson could probably benefit from a more forceful editor. The job Verna Fields did on Spielberg's Jaws is a good example of how the proper trimming of a film can make the director look good.

Speaking of Spielberg, one thing that he probably wouldn't have done, however, is some of the more intensely creepy parts of the movie. Jackson's history as a horror movie director serves him well here. Instead of the sense of softness and attempts to make horror palatable that you often find in Hollywood produced horror films, Jackson knows the only way to make something work is to really disturb the audience. Not only are the monsters in the movie scary, slimy and disturbingly large, they are front and center on the screen and stay there for the longest time. The scary bits in King Kong are nasty, brutish, and quite long. Well done Mister Jackson.

Crazy bits in movies only work if you have a large enough cast so that you can have a fair number of them get chased by psycho natives, eaten by monsters or drop-kicked by giant apes. Besides the all the poor saps who show up to be cannon fodder there are a few obligatory human leads for those members of the audience who for some reason can't immediately identify with Kong. As Ann Darrow, Naomi Watts does a fine job updating the screaming, helpless heroine for the 21st century. Now in addition to being a struggling actress and starving artist she is also shown to have a soft spot for hopeless cases. Under other circumstances she would end up being one of those crazy women who have a zillion pets in their house but luckily her attitude helps her out considerably when she meets up with a sad-sack of a giant gorilla. It's a nice update to the story from the original that Ann now has a bit of empathy for Kong. Thankfully it's not as overdone as the idiotic 1976 remake but it's better than how Fay Wray had to spend the second half of the original in various states of freaked out. Another update is that Jack Driscoll [Adrien Brody] is now a surprisingly in-shape author who manages to rise to the challenge when it comes to dealing with a dinosaur infested island. The only reason I can see for this change is that the screenwriters [Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and multi-tasking Peter Jackson] felt that it would be nice if the writer got the girl for once. While I loved Robert Armstrong in the original I must admit I was pleasantly surprised by Jack Black's turn as Carl Denham. Black not only had the look of a young Orson Welles but he had the shifty energy and self-centered attitude as well. The idea of a Welles trying to sell a giant monkey on Broadway is a funny image and really isn't all that unbelievable.

While the human cast does a fine job there's no getting around the fact that the star of the movie is a great big gorilla. The technical aspect of bringing Kong to the screen is all fine and dandy. Instead of looking like something added in post-production he moves around the screen with an actual sense of weight and he manages to stay the same size throughout the film. Even his fur looks natural, which must have been a real pain to pull off. But all the technical hoo-ha that went into creating the beast wouldn't matter if the audience couldn't identify with Kong. Through the efforts of motion capture acting provided by Andy Serkis and an entire movie production that was obviously sympathetic to Kong's cause the audience comes to understand just where the big ape is coming from. As a relic of a world long since past, Kong occasionally displays a nasty temper but is usually seen to be terribly lonely and terribly sad. The introduction of Ann into his life is probably only real companionship he's had in a very long time. It's this reminder of what it means to be alive that ironically leads to even greater suffering and the eventual doom of Kong. Crushed by a world he cannot understand only because he was looking for a sense of peace, Kong remains one of the great tragic figures of the modern era. Forget about the long running time and that the movie still doesn't explain who the hell let a giant monkey be imported into the country and brought into the middle of New York City. What matters is that the spectacle and poignancy remains.

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