KING KONG (2005)
CAST
Naomi Watts .... Ann Darrow
Jack Black .... Carl Denham
Adrien Brody .... Jack Driscoll
Thomas Kretschmann .... Captain Englehorn
Colin Hanks .... Preston
Andy Serkis .... Kong/Lumpy
Evan Parke .... Hayes
Jamie Bell .... Jimmy
Directed by Peter Jackson
Screenplay by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson
Original Story by Merian C Cooper and Edgar Wallace
SYNOPSIS
In the 1930s, filmmaker Carl
Denham, along with writer Jack Driscoll and actress Ann Darrow, sail to an
uncharted Pacific Island aboard the
tramp steamer 'Venturer'. Ann is later kidnapped by the savage natives of
the island as a sacrifice to Kong, a giant gorilla who has become their god.
Driscoll manages to rescue Ann but they are followed by Kong who is captured by
Denham and taken to New York where he is put on display. Kong escapes and
goes on the rampage before climbing, along with Ann, to the top of the Empire
State Building where he is attacked by army aeroplanes.
REVIEW
Peter Jackson's first film, after completing his epic adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, was eagerly awaited, more so because PJ has said that this is the film he has always wanted to make.
Sadly, I found it to be a bit
of a let down.
Visually, it is stunning, as is only to be expected. The production design wonderfully recreates the 1930s while Skull Island is a lush, alien jungle. Kong is beautifully realised, using the same actor (Andy Serkis) and motion capture technique that made Gollum so real.
Naomi Watts turns in a great performance as Ann while Jack Black gives, for him, a wonderfully understated performance as the obsessive Denham. Brophy's Driscoll is delivered with a quiet intensity and his chemistry with Watts works well.
So, where did the film fall down?
It is not easy to pin down but there is something sorely lacking at the heart of
the film. None of the characters are full fleshed out although they cannot
be called two-dimensional by any stretch of the imagination - the main exception
being the wonderfully defined relationship between Hayes (Evan Parke) and Jimmy
(Jamie Bell).
Finally, there is the whole
'Beauty and the Beast' subtext. In the 1933 original, Robert Armstrong's
Denham seemed to expound his thoughts on Beauty and the Beast frequently.
In Jackson's version, this seems to take a backseat and is only alluded to on
two or three occasions that I recall. As such, the film's closing line is
stripped of much of its power and pathos as it is no longer at the heart of the
story.
On the whole, King Kong cannot be said to be a bad film - many aspects of it are as excellent as we have learned to expect from Jackson. However, for me, there seemed to be an emotional vacuum at the film's heart.
6/10
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