Go Away, Monkey

Movie review the fourth. Though not a new release, I thought it worthy of review.

King Kong

It’s only fair to be skeptical about this movie. After all, as Mr. Martinez pointed out on several occasions, it’s a movie about a giant monkey. But it had a lot of things going for it that made me want to watch. First, several critics chose it as the best movie of last year. Although I don’t watch movies by what the critics say, its worth taking into account. Second, Peter Jackson directed. He directed the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and I think those movies were incredible. Third, it has Jack Black and Colin Hanks, two actors I really enjoy. And fourth, I didn’t really know much about the story of King Kong. So I gave it a shot.

Like LotR, this movie is absolutely epic. It’s over three hours long, and as I watched it progress, it felt like it was three different movies in one. Of course, that’s not necessarily a good thing. It’s set in the 1930s; the first hour was the setup for a movie within the movie – a struggling director hustles away a crew and its actors on a ship just in time to not get caught by the movie executives who want their money back. They’re heading to a supposedly uninhabited island, all the while shooting a romantic film on the seas. I found this part relatively entertaining, though not my usual cup of Ronald F Mexico.

This means the titular Mr. Kong didn’t make an appearance until nearly halfway through the movie. There’s some problems with the ship, then some problem with the inhabitants of the uninhabited island, who are creepy as all hell, and like to ritually sacrifice people. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. So, long story long, they capture the lead actress, and put her up on the chopping block for Senor Kong. The film and ship crews try to rescue her, but, well, they mostly fail.

This is where the movie really gets cool. Kong is on the loose, and he’s got the actress (Anne) held hostage. In true Guns and Roses fashion, the crews get a warm reception in the jungle, from various DINOSAURS and other messed up creatures. I was a little iffy on the dinosaurs idea, until they got spooked and decided to stampede. Now, if you’ve never been privy to a stampeding herd of brontosauri before, it’s quite an experience. As far as I’m concerned, you can shove the Running of the Bulls, I’ll take the Running of the Saurs any day. And in what I can only assume was an ode to the Blues Brothers, Peter Jackson chose to end the stampede in a 75 brontosauri pile-up. I’m not kidding. The whole thing as incredible.

Then some more stuff happens, Anne and Kong start bonding as women and stupid apes always do. But Kong’s no garden variety douchebag, no sir. Kong goes from giant monkey to action star pretty quickly, in what I’d say is probably the greatest extended cinematic action sequence I’ve seen since the freeway chase/ battle at the Merovingian’s Chateau in the Matrix Reloaded. Basically it involves Kong protecting Anne from three Tyrannosauri. First you’ve got the hand to hand combat, which is incredible. Imagine a gigantic Chuck Norris roundhouse kicking and body slamming dinosaurs, then ripping their heads off, and you’ll get the idea. Then Kong and two dini roll down a giant cliff, and while Kong fights off the saurs, he always has to make sure Anne is safe. They all fall off the cliff and end up hanging on a bunch of vines between two cliffs. My favorite part is where Anne is safely hanging by herself on a few vines, swinging around while Kong fights a Saur below on some more vines. But then she looks over and sees the other Saur just kinda hanging there, chilling on his own vines. The action continues on as Kong has to defeat these two, then squares off with the boss Saur down below.

After defeating the final Saur, Anne is just standing there, marveling at the good Kong, so rather than going to her and making sure she’s okay, he just kinda stands there, preening. This is funny ‘cause it’s like he’s showing off; he doesn’t go to her, he just stands there saying “Come on baby, the pimp train’s leaving with or without you, so hop on.” She does, and they roll out.

After that, we go back to the crews, who are now seriously thinned out in numbers. Then they have to face off with some seriously fucked up bug creatures, and I start to cringe. Fuckin’ hate spiders. Well, whatever. The bugs are eventually overcome, and….well, Anne gets rescued from Kong.

Obviously I’m skipping over some pretty important stuff, but this is how I saw the movie.

Then we hit the last portion of the film, where the ship crew brings Kong back to New York. I’m not going into the details of that, because….it seems pretty unlikely that their plan could possibly have worked to me. The point is, he’s NY bound. Then he’s a prisoner for theater performance, and exploited for profit. Bad move. Sure enough, Kong starts tearing shit up, and it’s on like Donkey Kong now. He rips up the theater, cars, buildings, and your mom before finding Anne. So happy together…..

I shit you not, next thing you know, they’re ice skating. Well, no skates, just spinning around on the ice. It’s kinda funny, but…well, I suppose that’s what Brian Boitano’d do.

Then Kong has to escape the army, and he runs up the Empire State Building. This was all pretty cool; he takes on some air planes, then he gets into a fistfight with Reginald VelJohnson, the guy who played Carl Winslow from Family Matters, and the cop from the first Die Hard. Or maybe it was just more airplanes. Either way, he fights some planes, and/or Carl Winslow. Then he dies, and it’s all sad and/or romantic.

Overall, I thought it was good. I loved the jungle scenes, especially the battles with the Saurs, which were breathtaking. But to me, it was just too long. I understand why the whole first hour was required, and it was good in its own right. But then the second hour is pretty intense, and it’s night and day from the first. Then the last hour is good, but…. I don’t know. It just felt like something was missing. Or way too much was included.

Or, it was just a giant monkey. Monkey did well for himself, but there’s only so much you can do with a giant monkey. And the movie was so many different things - - noir, action, romance, monkey, tragedy - - it accomplished a lot, and it was a great movie, but…really, the sum of its parts was better than the whole.

My score: B
Recommendation: It’s definitely worth seeing, especially if you like monkeys fighting dinosaurs, and if you’ve got 3 hours to spare.