REVIEW: Kong, the King of Soul

One song has this line in its lyrics
You never live until you’ve loved with all your heart and soul

King Kong left me with a bittersweet aftertaste. I was sad because the beast that I had not previously cared for, but came to love in its towering 2-hour presence on the big screen, died. Almost simultaneously, I rejoiced – because Kong was finally shown how to love after many long years, and be loved in return, a feat that some of us struggle a lifetime for in futility. And with that, he had truly lived.

Peter Jackson’s King Kong is a love story in every sense of the word. Carl Denham (Jack Black), is a passionate albeit pompous film-maker whom we hate to love, but whose never-say-die attitude is somewhat admirable although the target of his pursuit is always shrouded in mist or mystery. Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody), the sensitive playwright, has love oozing out his every pore. The stowaway Jimmy (Jamie Bell) is a lover of great adventures, one of the reasons for his stowing away on the ship and sticking with them for 4 years. The other reason is his admiration for Mr. Hayes (Evan Parke), the man who found him first and who has been looking out for him ever since like an adoring big brother. Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts), although out of work and starving, holds herself with much dignity and dreams that it cannot be anything less than a manifestation of her great love for life and its promises. And the beast himself, devoid of love and steeped in loneliness until he catches the spark ignited by Ann, burns and returns to ashes, all in the name of love.

It is also out of love that multiple Academy Award winner Peter Jackson, most famed for the top grossing films of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, decides to remake this 1933 classic. In fact, we have to thank King Kong for inspiring a filmmaker out of Jackson, who at age 9 was resolute after a treat to the 1933 Kong –“I want to make films.” The project was conceived and proposed even before the Rings trilogy. Universal Studios had in-principal approval to fund the picture but pulled out at the last minute due to an over-crowded market of ‘monsters’ hits and flops, causing Peter Jackson to put Plan B in action – the Lord of the Rings. The trilogy’s international critical acclaim and mind-blowing box office receipts had studio executives revisiting Jackson’s gargantuan childhood dream, which is set to be the biggest release of Christmas 2005.

King Kong chronicles the ambitions of a fledgling filmmaker, Carl Denham, to produce the masterpiece of his time on location at an island as mysterious as the map that has come into his possession. With studio executives throwing in the towel on his film project and his lead actress walking out on him, Denham scours the streets of New York for a replacement, and finds the desperate Ann Darrow in the reflection of a cabaret house’s glass doors. He woos and cajoles her into the lead role, but not without the mention of Jack Driscoll, a playwright of whom Ann is extremely fond. The crew boards a ship that has seen better days shipping live animals, with a chloroform-hording Captain Englehorn (Thomas Kretschmann). Jack Driscoll, expecting to be on the ship only long enough to deliver a partial script and to force some overdue payment from Denham, finds himself trapped aboard as it sets sail, leaving angry studio executives and the police in its trail.

The trip is peaceful at first, funny even, with the egoistic actor Bruce Baxter (Kyle Chandler) distorting Driscoll’s script beyond any semblance of his original work. His annoyance is only appeased by the exuberant Ann, for whom he gradually falls in love. The feeling is mutual but alas, the ship crashes on the rocky shores of Skull Island, Ann is abducted by the barbaric natives and offered to Kong as a sacrifice. Jack Driscoll sets off to rescue his love, the entire ship and film crew in tow. It is doubtful that Carl Denham cares very much for Ann’s fate, but the payoff from a major motion picture with a real giant ape, as he has glimpsed, is far too great to miss. Even the melancholic Preston (Colin Hanks) fails to sway his oversized caprice.

Using the same technology that brought the ancient Middle-Earth and its mystical inhabitants to life, Peter Jackson and his team inject life, heart and soul into Kong, in the same way they sucked the goodness out of Gollum, making him an instant legend in the world of 3D animation. Like Gollum, Kong is far from an empty shell of visually magnificent CGI triumph. He is a personality – extremely realistic and well thought out, down to the scars that his hulking torso bears, souvenirs of savage wars that he has fought and won. Of course Kong is beastly, but beneath all that hair and snarl, Kong is capable of feelings that unimaginable years of loneliness must have eroded but restored by the lovely Ann. Breathing life into Kong, or rather, breathing as Kong, is Andy Serkis who also lent his soul to Gollum. Character animators capture and duplicate Serkis’ motions and expressions on a lifeless CG model and voila, King Kong as we see on screen is born. Serkis also provides a point of interaction for Naomi Watts, enabling her to turn out a stunning performance as Ann Darrow.

Filming the hustle bustle of the Big Apple as it is may prove a daunting task for some, but to Peter Jackson, creating an entire city set in the 1930s is really a manageable challenge. The man has, after all, successfully created the worlds of ancient men, elves, goblins and dwarves on film. Stretching his ability as a fantasy imagineer, Jackson creates his own version of Jurassic Park in King Kong. I do not mind the dinosaurs so much, especially with that comical moment of Kong playfully clapping the loose jaws of a defeated T-Rex like a pair of castanets. The less palatable creatures are the upsized creepy crawlies. Just the sight of them makes my skin crawl and the theater puncture with shrieks of eehs and oohs. That must be the exact effect Jackson relishes, for the creature chase sequence is a little too extended to my liking. However, it is very well done; so much so that I couldn’t wait to get off Skull Island soon enough, even though there are parts where half a degree of separation exists between the imaginary world and the actors, with the latter clearly being filmed on blue screen and superimposed into the creature chase.

Only a handful would not have anticipated the ending once King Kong is brought to New York. A savage beast in an even more savage city, the beast does not stand a chance. How else could he return to his homeland since he only has Ann, and maybe Jack Driscoll, on his side? Nevertheless, as the events unfold – Kong’s escape from the chains that hold him at the centre of public ridicule, the legendary climb up the Empire State Building, the swatting of the planes like they were flies, the cradling of Ann in his arms in a gorgeous moment of solitude as they watch the sun creep above the horizon to bathe the city with golden rays – it is tough to keep a dry eye.

Especially when Kong places a hand at his heart – in a ‘beautiful’ expression, an affirmation that he understands, feels and remembers what Ann teaches him on Skull Island – King Kong is more alive than ever. Like a true legend, King Kong and his story of unwavering love will prevail in the hearts of movie-goers and box offices everywhere.