King Kong in 2005

First of all, the racial politics of King Kong are deeply, deeply disturbing. And I cannot believe that no one has commented on this (at least not in any reviews I've read). This notable silence signifies to me that there is a serious delusion prevailing in American culture that racism has been quelled to the point that perpetuating racial stereotypes is all fine and good because, of course(!), everyone understands that stereotypes aren't real and are just used for effect. Sure, the silly portrayal of the Chinese cargo foreman was mostly redeemed by the excellent performance by Evan Parke as Hayes, the articulate, heroic African American first mate (who, of course, dies), but there is nothing in the film that can make me forgive the incredibly insulting representation of the island natives. You know, many civilized early cultures performed human sacrifice rituals. Just because they're giving Naomi Watts to Kong doesn't mean they have to act like psychotic, savage animals, incapable of speech beyond screeching incoherently or mumbling incantations, and with their eyes rolled back in their heads so that only the whites show in stark contrast to the coal-blackness of their skin (which looks, although I can't be certain, to be greased and darkened for further effect). I mean, really. Peter Jackson, what the fuck were you thinking? It's sad to think that the portrayal of the native islanders in the 1933 version--where they're actually capable of having a conversation--is less problematic than their portrayal in 2005.
And while I'm bitching about the island scenes, did anyone else feel that the whole sacrifice mise-en-scene looked a little too much like the castle siege set from The Lord of the Rings?

Okay, I'm glad I got that off my chest. Now, onwards...

I thought Naomi Watts was brilliant, and Adrien Brody was pretty good, too, in a quiet, understated sort of way that was refreshing in contrast to all the flashy imagery. Jack Black irritated the hell out of me, to the point that when he first came on screen I thought: Am I really going to be able to sit through 3 hours of this guy? Speaking of length, I know that Peter Jackson is overcome with rapture for his own brilliance and the magical power of special effects, but 3 hours was just too long. Not because I can't sit still for 3 hours--I was more than willing to do so with the LotR trilogy, for example, because the stories warranted the time (for the most part)--but because at least an hour, if not more, of the film was, quite simply, gratuitous, flashy posturing.

After about the quadrillionth time Black and his merry band of expendable anti-heroes was beset upon by stampeding brontosaurs, attacked by excessively large insects or eaten by grotesquely slimly twelve-foot long water worms and about the hundredth time Watts was either carried in one of Kong’s hands as he galloped through the forest (um, all of her bones would be broken twenty times over because of the sheer impact of his knuckles hitting the forest floor with her inside whether he was deliberately squeezing or not) or protected from raging T-Rex’s and other hungry dinosaurs, bats, bugs, etc., I was ready to scream.

It could have been shorter, with less special effects for the sake of special effects and more narrative depth, and it would have been a good remake. Instead, it illustrated the core of what is wrong with Hollywood films today—a concentration on the visual which exceeds even the pretence of an interest in the story—and April and I spent at least an hour after the film bitching heatedly. I can honestly say that I have never come out of the cinema so thoroughly incensed.

On the upside—and so you don’t think I’m anti-special effects entirely (I just think they should be used for a purpose not just because you can)—Kong was a remarkable creation; his features were beautiful and realistic and obviously crafted from actual images of gorillas. And the story was beautiful and poignant in spite of its exceptionally discomfiting, exhausting and ostentatious rendering. But when Black delivered (badly, I might add) the final line—“It wasn’t the airplanes; it was beauty killed the beast”—I had to fight the impulse to jump angrily out of my seat and yell at the screen, “No, you bastard. It was the airplanes, and your fucking patriarchal, colonialist, pompous ass that killed Kong. She could have stayed or even left the island with you and everything would have been okay if you hadn’t decided to drag poor Kong back to New York City for show and tell. Argh!”

Sadly, what the film brought home to me to me most was that many people, once they catch sight of power or money or fame, will stop at nothing to achieve it. Along the way, they will sacrifice the lives of others for some fanciful notion of adventure or honor or glory that doesn’t truly exist, and they will gallantly destroy “monsters” in the name of the public or the nation or the common good, claiming that they are fighting for everyone, that the enemy is savage, when it really is an enemy of their own design, a monster that they themselves created.