King Kong Special Edition
Filed Under: Film, Reviews | Article Tags : DVD review
By: Erik Swift
April 2006
|
Nothing was better to see in a theater in 2005 than “King Kong.” That’s not saying much when noting last year’s cinematic releases sucked ass! However, try to recall the last time a movie wrapped you up for every second, one that wouldn’t let you take your eyes off it until the credits started to roll, and worth raving about to strangers on the street. That’s Peter Jackson’s “King Kong,” a diamond of 2005, The Year Of The Remake. The original signaled the end of the seminal horror burst of 1931-1933 that included “Dracula,” “Frankenstein” and “The Mummy.” Setting a new standard for patience in a business that has none, David O. Selznick and directors Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack crafted an epic tale that entranced generations about a movie director’s quest to find and explore a legendary island where dinosaurs still roamed its jungles and shores, whose most feared resident is the 25-foot gorilla Kong.
At first, who’d want to top a classic? Avoiding the sloppiness of the 1976 remake, Jackson comes at “King Kong” with the wide-eyed love of a child, reverently preserving the 1933 era of the original, preventing the notion of someone whipping out a camera phone to upload dinosaur photos to the internet and forcing Celine Dion songs from the soundtrack. Raging through home theaters in a double-disc Special Edition DVD from Universal Pictures, Jackson has made a keeper.
The Great Depression is forcing America to its knees, but the filmmaking boom isn’t enveloping Carl Denham (Jack Black). Bolting from a meeting with investors ready to pull the plug on his production, Denham manages to evade police and pluck an actress (Naomi Watts’ Ann Darrow) off the New York streets en route to the vessel that will take his film crew west of Sumatra to the fog-cloaked Skull Island, the last uncharted territory on Earth. Its jagged cliffs deter all but the most determined; they soon discover its native people, who snatch Darrow as a sacrifice to Kong. On a dangerous rescue mission, they witness sights never seen by the civilized world while Kong falls for his blonde trophy. Darrow proves to be his undoing, luring Kong into a trap that brings him to Times Square.
Jackson’s film is inherently the same as Cooper and Schoedsack’s – the Titanic still sinks, but it stands on new ground. With a running time over three hours, “King Kong” moves quickly despite Jackson’s camera pausing uncomfortably on its subjects, bringing viewers inside their brains. Widescreen is essential for his incredible images: the recreation of Depression-era New York, the first sights of the foggy Skull Island coastline, the wall that separates its citizens from Kong, the vast fields and vine-drenched canyons with various inhabitants, and the finale atop the Empire State Building. The middle act on Skull Island is a trip. Just when you think you’ve seen it all during a dinosaur stampede, the film cranks up a notch when a trio of Tyrannosaurus Rex goes after Ann. The big fella’s a sucker for blondes, making him more Jude Law than human.
Much of “King Kong” can’t be verbalized, and lengthy spurts without dialogue pass so fluidly that ten minutes can elapse before it’s noticeable. These relative silences are where the film’s hefty emotion goes into overdrive, and most are powered by Watts. Watch her – she gives a depth to Ann never present in the original. Andy Serkis goes deeper as the ape, digitally transitioning a combination of raw animal emotion and humanity that packs a tremendous punch. The honesty these two exude between a real person and a digital creation is so credibly simple, they have a better connection than Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon in “Walk The Line.” Watts smolders, a fuse to light Serkis’ powder keg. Someday when the category for best digital actor is created, he’ll be shaking his head and sighing. Of the other principles, Adrien Brody seems to fit the role of scriptwriter Jack Driscoll, but Black is perfect as Denham. His wiseass demeanor bubbles to the surface periodically (he convinces Ann of his trustworthiness by saying “I’m a movie producer!”).
Special features for Peter Jackson films are the DVD version of “CSI”: so many exist, where do you start? Go with the bonus docs first, where viewers are catapulted into the Great Depression. A wealth of archival footage and photos must have been scoured from the deepest vaults of stock photography houses worldwide – the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression, the Jazz Age and the skyscraper era, it’s all here, bringing Jackson’s boggling attention to detail to the fore. A Skull Island documentary? Yes, and it’s killer. What remains are production diaries from http://www.kongisking.net, which I was initially skeptical about. Q: Why watch dozens of vignettes that range from three to six minutes, originally made for the most obsessive drooling web buffs? A: Combined, they present the most detailed coverage of post production yet on a DVD. Literally, this covers EVERY aspect: the art of foley recording and miniatures, rotoscoping’s digital doctors and the making of some of the thousands of special effect shots and sound effects are just some of the areas spotlighted on a (mostly) weekly basis. At one point, a crew member sports a t-shirt from “Jurassic Park II: The Lost World.” Behind him, Jackson hisses that the guy is on the wrong set, a veiled insult to Spielberg’s blatant Kong ripoff. The director scores a coup with these diaries – instant bonus features, through it all a bleary-eyed crew ignoring the mounting pressure of a release date.
“King Kong” rescued moviegoers; since the initial “Kill Bill,” there hasn’t been a more rousing theatrical experience. Given a $200+ million budget, many perceive the film as a financial letdown, but too often it’s wrongly compared to Jackson’s Lord Of The Rings trilogy. “Kong” refused to be manhandled by the traditional holiday competition: it broke even in the USA and made a boatload more abroad, won three of the four Oscars it was up for and sold over a million DVDs its first day in stores. Try to tell anyone that’s bad. The film is a glorious achievement that deserved more than technical recognition, especially for Watts and Serkis. Jackson has made the most rare of updates, one that’s mentioned in the same breath as the original. Looking back on 2005 and its volume of crap remakes, it’s clear that one towers over the rest…Kong!
Reviewer’s Opinion: BUY IT!!
Loading ...
