Yes, some action scenes in King Kong are implausible. Yes, a few sweeping sunset vistas look very computer-generated. Of course, a 25-foot-tall ape could never slide on an ice-covered pond in Central Park. And really, how convenient is it that the whole issue of transporting said ape via damaged boat is left inside a fade-to-black?
Those are all valid points I have heard many times in the past month since Peter Jackson's $207 million remake hit theaters. And each time I think of King Kong's leaps in logic and violation of the laws of physics, I also remember the dozen times I was so excited I wanted to leap out of my seat and yell like hell.
That is the point of a movie like this, and Jackson should start sleeping fitfully knowing he might be the savior of popular American cinema. But not only is Kong a breathless action epic, it's the heartbreak of the year. And yes, it's three hours and change, but it certainly feels shorter than Must Love Dogs.
The story is a part of pop culture lore by now, thanks to a ground-breaking original and a notorious 1976 remake: An ambitious director, Carl Denham (Jack Black), coerces a lonely, struggling actress, Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts), into starring in his next picture. Evading cops on his trail, Denham crams his cast and crew on a creaky steamer, and they set off for Skull Island (the island's name kept, wisely, from most of the ship's inhabitants).
Jackson could have easily sped the proceedings along so poor Ann quickly winds up in the hands of the brutish but expressive ape, but the hour before the nonstop action is a masterstroke. Here, relationships are forged, conflicts are introduced and one of the most evocative and haunting shots in any 2005 movie occurs: a slow, elegant tracking shot that sweeps past the ship's inhabitants as they step out to gaze into eerie, oppressive fog shielding some fates just ahead.
And then all hell breaks loose. Jackson orchestrates scenes on the island like a composer, meshing tender moments between Ann and Kong and peril-fraught chases (never pushing them to the point of repetition), bringing some moments - such as a gory brawl between Kong and three dinosaurs - to crescendos that demand applause.
What is perhaps most astonishing about the film is the connection made with its central characters, Kong included. This is not the story of an ape who has the hots for a beautiful blonde; this is a non-creepy, interspecies love story about a woman who finally finds someone willing to fight for her. Watts and Andy Serkis, who lends the gestures and facial movements to Kong, make it shockingly believable.
Which is why the film's operatic final hour is even more tragic. Kong's desperate ascent to the top of the Empire State Building is an incendiary blend of wonder and dread, the film's conclusion and Kong's fate necessary but devastating. Who knew an ape would cause so many tears?
In a year that saw the brilliant invention of Sin City
the sobering moral quandary of Munich and the sweeping social panorama of Crash King Kong was the best Hollywood movie that emerged. Although its box office receipts have been (inexplicably) lackluster, Jackson should have the satisfaction of knowing his masterpiece will be remembered long after anything else that played this year. See it at the Athena Grand so you'll have something to say to your grandkids when they ask you what it was like seeing it on the big screen.
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Matt Burns
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Naomi Watts plays the heroine in King Kong, a story about the friendship between a woman and a larger-than-life gorilla, directed by Peter Jackson.
