King Kong (2005)

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Review #86 of 365
Film: King Kong (2005) [PG-13] 180 minutes
WIP™ Scale: $14.00
When 2nd Seen: 6 April 2006
Where Viewed: Elvis Cinemas, Arvada, CO
Review Dedicated to: Jeff “Buddah” B. of Chicago, IL

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It has been a really long time since I first saw Peter Jackson’s update of King Kong. This has been a gap in my database for too long, and I decided today that it needed to be filled. The Elvis Cinema, a very small 2nd run movie house chain in Colorado, was happy to take my $3 and permit me to fulfill my desire to see King Kong, one last time, on the big screen. I came to several conclusions as I watched this cinematic spectacle and Dionysian-like feast for the movie fanatic’s senses. One, I will save for a side bar (it will be about how the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts, & Sciences needs to change), and the other, I will mention here as part of this review. You can have a brilliant, Academy Award®-winning director, employ an incredibly talented cast, spend a whole ton of money (reportedly around $207,000,000 see my source (The Numbers.com), make a pretty amazing movie when it comes to technology and grandeur, and still barely make back your money in domestic US ticket sales (US Gross to date $218,051,260) (combined international gross to date $547,051,260). Considering this conjured up this headline in my mind, “What went wrong for King Kong?” for a possible follow up news story on the failure of the movie to do better at the box office. You might be scoffing to think that $547 million in world-wide gross is a failure, but consider this:

Movie	Cost	Domestic Gross	Combined Gross	Gain/Loss
Harry Potter: The Goblet of Fire	150	290	891	741
Chronicles of Narnia	150	291	727	577
King Kong	207	218	547	340
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory	150	206	473	323
Batman Begins	150	205	372	222

(all figures are in millions of U.S. dollars)

source: The Numbers.com

King Kong comes out squarely in the middle of its $150 million+ peers. It did not do as well as Harry Potter IV nor Chronicles of Narnia by a long shot. Beyond the financials of the film, it did not do especially well in Academy Award® nominations area either—surprising considering its pedigree and how Mr. Jackson got robbed with only one Academy Award despite 3 LOTR films. And, it did not fare very well when it comes to the buzz factor—how much are people talking about the film and telling their peers to see it. Could it be due to the running time of three hours? Partially it could be and it could have been edited down to 2 hours and 20 minutes with the remainder going to the DVD release as deleted scenes. Personally, I don’t mind long movies, but I know that most people do.

So, again, what went wrong for Kong?

So, let’s take a look at what this film was up against. First and foremost, it had, maybe, some Peter Jackson issues. Mr. Jackson is so thorough and so methodical and such a professional that he might actually have been a victim here, a bit, of his own professionalism. Maybe it wasn’t necessary to show all of Ann (Naomi Watts) Darrow’s life prior to her getting on the boat with Carl Denham (Jack Black) and ‘film within a film’ filmmaker. Maybe it wasn’t necessary to have every creepy kind of lost island critter attacking the group for an hour on end. Sure, this stuff was all cool and added many layers to the story, yet these segments did not advance the storyline very much in some cases and took just too long in others. Cutting these and saving them for the DVD would have shortened the film, quickened the pace, and maybe retained the attention span of more movie goers.

Next, I would like to mention the PETA problem which, in this film, overlaps a bit with a related societal issue of the way the western world is perceived to be at odds with the natural world. PETA, of course, is the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. They have a mission of protecting animal rights. Well, there is no one protecting Kong’s rights—though Ann comes around and does all she can; and, in the end, his demise is a very, very, very sad affair. [Of course, Kong isn’t real, yet the whole point is that he is as realistic as possible and, frankly, that success makes it all the more difficult for people who love all animals very empathetic to Kong’s character. They do not want to see him shot at by biplanes nor chained up on a big stage. It really serves as a not-so-welcome reminder that for too long the western approach to solving natural problems has been simply to kill them off. Wolves! Mosquitoes! Bacteria! Kill all the wolves and you have no natural predators for deer and elk leading to such horrors as bovine wasting disease and deer over population causing them to eat crops. Use DDT to kill all mosquitoes and you have no food for all the mosquito eaters from bats to frogs, and worse the DDT accumulates in streams and rivers and then fish and eventually weakens the egg shells of your national symbol (bald eagle) that live off eating the fish. Kill all the bacteria and you have no good bacteria either in the environment which (a) might be the only thing killing off the bad bacteria, (b) nothing to decompose matter in the soil to return nutrients to plants and nothing to fix nitrogen compoiunds in the soil which allows plants to grow and (c) possibly an entire generation of children afflicted with all sorts of diseases, allergies, and syndromes that may be directly related to the anti-bacterial world we try to raise them in thinking this is a good thing. In any case, the point is simple, it has been the western way to shoot first and think later. The connections and cascade effect of these decisions has usually been an afterthought if a thought at all. As our planet and civilizations evolves over time, the tolerance for such thinking is diminishing rapidly as was demonstrated when all but two nations ratified the Kyoto Treaty to work to stop the global warming problem—sadly, the USA did not ratify the treaty. The rest of the western world, however, did indicating much progress in global dynamics and systems thinking. I have plugged his book before, but please do read Fritjof Capra’s Web of Life for a more thorough treatment of systems thinking and its importance to the survival of our planet. For me, Carl Denham’s character represented all of the evil of this type of myopic thinking. Oh, he talks a good game about wanting to use the proceeds from his efforts to better the lives of those who were lost in acquiring Kong, but it all seems a sham in the end. He worships one thing and one thing only and that is money. While both of these points are brilliant ones to make in this movie, they are not cheerful, and there are a lot of people incapable or unwilling to let themselves see these points. They are just too painful. It is possible that this decreased the buzz factor as people who saw the film did not recommend it to others as it was a ‘downer’.

Sadly, in many ways, the film is a downer. There is nothing uplifting about it. There is no Frodo saving Middle Earth at the end of the third chapter. And, this might explain why the rest of the world received the film to the tune of close to $300 million. The rest of the world may have been able to watch this film through slightly different eyes and note that while the film is a downer, it teaches a very powerful and important lesson.

Beyond the political aspects of the film which I have only surmised. I would like to finish with a quick run down on everything else in brief, I promise.

The cast:
I am not a huge fan of either Naomi Watts nor Jack Black. Both are simply brilliant in this film. They won me over instantly. In fact, for a while I forgot that Carl Denham was Jack Black. In reality, he probably deserved an Oscar® nod for this role. Naomi Watts, the third actress to play the love interest for Kong was, by far, my favorite having seen all three films and having to admit that I would never have thought I would prefer anyone to Jessica Lange whom I still believe to be second only to HRH Meryl Streep when it comes to acting royalty in the USA, however, Naomi Watts was simply unreal in this role: fierce, daring, in touch with inner emotions normally untapped, courageous, and sentimental. As for Adrien Brody, he’s untouchable. One of the great things about a Peter Jackson film (post LOTR anyway) is that he gives the time to allow every character to develop. So, we know more almost know more about his character, playwright Jack Driscoll, than we know about Johhny Cash in Walk the Line. Seriously, I know that sounds ridiculous, but see King Kong and then let me know if you disagree and how vehemently. In any case, Mr. Brody is simply won of the best actors out there if you need an actor than can wear his emotional baggage in every move of his slight muscular frame. And, while these three are the main stars of the story, wonderful performances were delivered by: Colin Hanks as Preston, Carl Denham’s personal assistant; Kyle Chandler as Bruce Baxter, Jamie Bell as Jimmy, Evan Parke as Hayes, and Thomas Kretschmann as Captain Englehorn. Last but certainly not least, in the LOTR trilogy, Peter Jackson took CGI characters to a new level when he put Andy Serkis in a grey suit with ping pong balls at strategic locations and motion captured his movement to create Gollum. Mr. Serkis never got his due justice for really bringing Gollum to life. So, who better to take on the role of the King? So, yes, Mr. Serkis is the man in the digital ape suit so to speak, and for that he deserves very high praise. He also plays Lumpy if you wonder what he really looks like.

The Film:
As I am not a huge fan of remakes, normally, I would have booed this concept. Quite the contrary, when I learned that Peter Jackson was taking on this project, I was delighted. I could only imagine what he would do with it. One of my conclusions about Mr. Jackson which could read, I suppose, a little like it might be advice for him, is that he likes to work in three parts. King Kong is really three movies in one. The first movie is involves the rounding up of the cast and the journey to Skull Island. The second takes us from the landing on the island to the journey home with Kong in tow. The third takes place back in NYC with the unveiling of Kong before a packed theater audience and Kong’s historic climb up the Empire State Building. I wonder how things would have turned out had he made each segment a 90-minute movie as Parts I, II, and III of the King Kong Trilogy. Hey, it worked just fine for LOTR. Anyway, these three acts of the movie each has its own rising action, climax, and denouement. To some viewers this might make the movie seem a bit like a roller coaster with all this up and down motion. I concur that the film may feel like an amusement park ride, but I enjoyed that. I felt like I was definitely getting my money’s worth. Every single production aspect was done to perfection. The sets, costumes, creatures, everything, were just breathtaking. The recreation of 1920s Manhattan was just amazing. I would say this was one of the best films made when it comes to the amount of CGI that had to be done since the LOTR trilogy.

Was it Deserving of a Best Picture Nomination?:
Well, yes it was. Why didn’t it get nominated then? The same reason, I think, that Memoirs of a Geisha did not get nominated. But I’ll leave more on this to my side bar on how the Academy needs to change. King Kong, despite having an incredibly sad and emotionally charged ending, was one of the best films of 2005. I had originally given it a $14.00 on the W.I.P. Scale™ which was only the second lowest score tied with such other Best Picture-nominated films as Brokeback Mountain, Crash (2005), and Good Night, and Good Luck. The film that got its spot was Capote. I cannot say what was going through the minds of the voters for the nominees when they selected Capote over King Kong (2005). There is really no comparison between these two films on any level. Maybe voters feared if nominated it would surely win Best Picture, and they did not want to see another heavy CGI film win the top prize. Or maybe Peter Jackson’s monetary success as a producer/director will move him into the Steven Spielberg category…nominate him every so often to make him feel loved, but don’t vote for him in the end because he’s already too successful. In any case, it is a shame that King Kong (2005) did not get more of the respect that it deserved either at the box office or when the awards came around. It really is an amazing film.

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Now Available for Purchase on DVD

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DVD Options Available for Purchase
King Kong (Widescreen Version) [DVD](2005) DVD
King Kong: Peter Jackson's Production Diaries (2005) [DVD] DVD
King Kong (Two-Disc Collector's Edition) [DVD](1933) DVD
King Kong [DVD](1976) DVD
King Kong Collection [DVD] DVD