Dir. Peter Jackson, New Zealand/US, 2005, 187 min
Cast: Naomi Watts, Jack Black, Adrien Brody, Jamie Bell
Review by Becky Day
The giant gorilla has returned to our screens for a third time featuring more special effects than the ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy put together.
The story follows our heroine Ann Darrow (Watts), who is struggling to live working in a Vaudeville theatre during the depression of 1933. She meets film fanatic director Carl Denham (Black) who sweeps her up in the idea of starring in her own movie. Carl, unfortunately, is not only trying to film a ground breaking feature, but also to film in a never before seen location, Skull Island. Determined to find the unimaginable at any cost necessary, Carl leads a tattered crew towards a dangerous land discovering an almost ‘zombified’ tribe of people, dinosaurs and, of course, the eighth wonder of the world ‘King Kong’. Ann is captured and offered as a sacrifice to the beast. This humongous creature that cannot be stopped by guns, nets, or dinosaurs reveals a soft spot with the fascinating miming blonde creature. Once captured, it’s down to Jack Discoll (Brody), the screen writer, to save her and down to Carl to film it for all the world to see.
Peter Jackson returns with his latest obsession King Kong and his attention to detail in this flick is no less emphatic than it was on LOTR. His way of setting mood, time and place is unlike any other director as he begins the first act in a very theatrical style, playing music all the way through, establishing the depression era of the 1930’s and cleverly setting up to the moment when we are introduced to Ann’s poverty stricken life in the theatre.
Long since the 1933 black and white static movement of a model and drawings, long since the screaming heroine and monster Kong, we have expanded effects in breathtaking leaps to develop the ultimate King Kong of 2005. Using what works, Peter took with him many of the crew from the LOTR trilogy and that also included Andy Serkis who did the motion capture for Gollum. Serkis took on the daunting challenge of playing Kong. Peter knew Kong had to be a completely different entity and used motion capture and computer animation to create a whole new CGI creation. The team actually had to create new software to be able to make Kong as real as possible because they couldn’t just transfer a straight forward motion capture of Serkis’ facial expressions to the CGI Kong (as he’s not a gorilla). As it was very important that Kong was realistic, Weta craftsmen resolved the situation by building Kong with the correct musculature and skeletal structure of a gorilla and developed software that would translate human expressions into corresponding gorilla expressions.
Kong’s home was also artificial, Jackson comments about the designs for Skull Island: “It’s like a jungle from hell – the most twisted, tortured terrain you can imagine. And I just knew from looking at the pictures that we were never going to find a location like that. So we decided, very early on, that if we were really going to make Skull Island look like the conceptual art, that creating it artificially was the only way to do it.”
Jackson explains from making his Trilogy of Lord of the Rings that “One of the Lessons that we learned with The Lord of the Rings movies was the more fantastical your story, the more you should try to ground it in the reality of the world” But… in a world where humans are prey even to the giant bugs, it’s ever so slightly far fetched that three T-Rex’s would fight Kong for a measly size 4 screaming woman, no?
It was pleasing to see a heroine who is not so much a victim and more of a survivor. Your eardrums will be pleased to discover that there is less screaming in this version than the original and more of a lower frequency roaring.
Jack Black (who, coincidently, looks decidedly like Peter Jackson) plays a fanatic movie maker who will stop at nothing to finish his picture. Black, well known for comedy performances, carries the film with Naomi Watts. He still remains a funny character to watch perform but has definitely picked up another layer playing a very well developed, morally flawed character.
“Billy Elliot’s” star Jamie Bell plays Jimmy, one of the crew on the ship to the lost Island, and they managed to slip in a quick scene of him dancing. Coincidental? Probably about as coincidental as having King Kong stop his rampage for ten minutes to shake a Tram full of people... Universal’s ride King Kong I’m sure will be very popular next year.
Try to imagine the passion multiple Oscar winner Peter Jackson put into Lord of the Rings and now imagine he is taking on his favourite film of all time and you will have some idea of how good the movie is. Peter’s love for Kong has made the ape a different enemy as he has emotion and we feel empathy for this giant beast because he’s not the heart of all evil, he’s just a huge animal in bad circumstances who doesn’t know any better. This is not as much action as I assumed with previous Jackson epics. It has more of a classical movie feel and carries a lot of heart. Still a Jackson picture of epic length but is a great one to end the year on.
Discuss this film here
Universal have announced the UK Region 2 DVD release of Peter Jackson's King Kong for 10th April 2006. Peter Jackson's remake of the 1933 original comes to UK DVD as a 2-Disc Special Edition priced at £24.99.
Presented in 2.35:1 Anamorphic Widescreen with English DD5.1 Surround audio and optional English SDH, Arabic and Icelandic subtitles, all bonus material can be found on the second disc with over 3-hours of additional material present...
- Special Introduction by Peter Jackson
- Post Production Diaries – Director Peter Jackson takes you on an unforgettable journey with Naomi Watts, Jack Black, Adrien Brody and the crew of King Kong as they reveal virtually every aspect of post production on this groundbreaking film, nearly three hours of exclusive behind the scenes footage!
- Skull Island: A Natural History – Travel to treacherous Skull Island with Peter Jackson and his crew! From its mysterious origins to its reclusive inhabitants and jaw-dropping creatures, uncover the fascinating facts about one of the last uncharted places on earth.
- Kong’s New York, 1933 – 1930s New York comes alive in this fascinating piece that explores vaudeville, the skyscraper boom, the construction of the Empire State building and more.
|
