I am now going to give my objective and careful summary of the new "King Kong" movie. There are spoilers ahead, but I encourage you to read anyway, because I feel people need to be warned. x.x
King Kong starts out with a tasteful and ironic scene juxtaposing the unjust rich and the unjust poor in 1920's New York City, connecting the two via silly vaudeville acts. So one of the actors is a woman playing the part of a man, her friend and mentor being a professional sneezer. Congratulations, she's the main character! She gets put out on the street after the theatre closes and stiffs her a final paycheck. (There was a reason the Great Depression happened, and to give you a clue, it wasn't poor people who did it.)
So she's starving on the streets, though still pink with health, with a nice mink fur coat, and perfectly trussed hair. She does a few token scenes of getting really really hungry, which did get to me because I must have starved to death in a past life I think. Hunger is one of the most horrible things to see people suffer. One Piece did a much better job than this movie though. It was just to make her desperate when El Rich Bastard refuses her a part and sends her to look for work at a burlesque theatre, all the while eating in front of her. People considered dancing with your naked legs and underwear showing at that time about the same as we today consider strip clubs. Sleazy, low quality, traumatizing and dehumanizing, as opposed to alluring, carefully choreographed, illuminating and empowering to its well paid workers. I don't know why we think that, but every era seems to have its pointless taboo.
So she turns from the bordello, so hungry she tries to steal an apple and gets caught (Jasmine!) whereupon bright eyed fanatic director dude saves her with a dime.
Okay his scene was pretty cool. He shouted at his Rich Bastard backers, and they decided to cut his funding because he was a no-name (and because he called them sleazy perverted bastards). Instead of complying though, he gathered everyone together and jumped on the boat he had bought with... money they decided to cut. So they send the police after him, because of course money is more valuable than freedom or expression. He uh, gets away. Drags le main charracter along.
Leaky boat, salty sailors, live animal trade, "We have to go back, it's impossible!" standard stuff. The captain gets a telegram that fanatic director dude has a warrant out for his arrest for daring to steal from rich bastards, tries to turn the ship to port but It's Too Late. The fog swallows them, and no matter how hard the captain turns, his ship runs straight toward the cliffy shores.
At this point the movie gets... stupid. Incredibly stupid. The film crew breaks for shore while the salty sailors are trying to free their boat to go deliver the film crew to the police. On arriving on the island, find deserted ruins, ancient cities, etc. Fanatic director dude happens upon a native girl. To try to win her friendship, he tries to practically ram a chocolate bar down her throat. That's probably enough to be roughly grabbed by the cops and questioned. What happened instead was a screaming mob of vein throbbing males start sticking spears grotesquely through everyone's gut. They grab everyone and as if it were for afternoon tea, start busting their heads open one by one with a spiked mace.
Cue the authentic natives. Please?
So the Bloodthirsty Savages all run screaming when the salty sailors arrive with guns, and start shooting bullets through everyone's gut. Teh day is saved! Everyone runs back to the ship and they all prepare to leave, including film director dude who's going to like, get executed for stealing rich people's money or something. But uh oh, we can't let them escape, that would mean the end of the movie! So that night one of the bloodthirsty savages pole vaults... yes, that's right, pole vaults across the rocks in the ocean, to the one the ship is shoved up against.
Somehow this ignorant native sneaks past everyone on the ship (except one guy whose throat gets cut and gruesomely displayed to the audience at one point), and who does he grab? Why, the female lead role of course! Then he somehow sneaks out of the ship without her making enough sound in protest, despite the fact that she demonstrated that her ability to scream surpassed even that of the bellow of the mighty giant King Kong. So the vine rope that nobody noticed snaking around the ship while savage searched for girl was attached to a tether around savage's waist, which is how both of them were pulled back to shore.
I should pause at this point to speak of the love interest. The screenwriter for this film, who's typing inside one of the animal cages, instantly falls in love with the main character. She kind of does the same, except there's a cute scene where she's insulting him, not thinking him directly behind her. He's a bookish type with a hooked nose, because we all know bookish types have to either have hook noses or thick glasses. Anyway, so he starts writing a comedy for her, and when she asks why, well pretty much it's 'cause he wants to do her like she ain't never been done before. Translate into censored movie crap: they kiss.
Anyway, back to the jungle. Elaborate fire ceremony, scary old black (oh forgot to mention these natives are very, very black skinned) woman says gobbledygook and they swing the girl out on a prepice. Kong comes, grabs her. While this is happening... to save the girl, the whole crew piles out with guns and smuggled tommyguns this time, basically mowing down every bloodthirsty savage they see (though that happens off camera). Taking the village in minutes, they're looking for the girl, and fanatic director sees Kong take her into the bushes. He doesn't tell anyone, in a sudden burst of dumb.
Of course, since mister bookish screenwriter knows he won't get another date in like, a million years (in movie land, only perfect males get dates), he's in the lead to get her back, assault rifle clutched in his manly hands. Actually, with a little longer hair and no shirt, he'd look just like Rambo. He's got a sort of Sylvester Stallone nose. Upon leaving the village, they're beset upon by inch long mosquitos. Some of the men fire tommy guns at the mosquitos. Automatic rifles at mosquitos. Someone shouts for them to save their ammunition, even though in movies ammunition never runs out until the wrong time, whereupon it always runs out (or jams).
The group pausing to rest in a steep walled valley, the director goes up ahead to film, whereupon he finds... sigh... brontosauruses. He finds brontosauruses just chillin' there, eating grass. Then some utahraptors come along and the brontosauruses start to run... right into the valley where everyone's resting.
The men are overtaken by a charging brontosaurus herd, in which many of the humans are squished, others twining under the sauropod legs, where they find the utahraptor have also dove in, the predators still trying for some reason to take the brontos down. So the humans are kicking away at utahraptor snout and not using their guns, and the brontos are still squishing people, running down this narrow valley about the width of a single brontosaurus. Finally some people start using their guns, which only seem to irritate the utahraptors. One of 'em fires at a brontosaurus though, which trips and goes down. And then the next bronto tumbles over the first. And then the next, and the next. Until the screen is filled with brontosaurus feet, brontosaurus arms, and brontosaurus butts smashing everything as the entire herd comes to a skidding halt.
I wanted to walk away at this point. If I had not been pressed into this movie, I would have. So after that... thing, there was a cute scene where Kong and girl bond. I don't think they can screw off camera, but then again they say a gorilla's member isn't as big proportionally as a human's... anyway after Kong throws a tantrum and leaves, the crew happens upon Kong's cave. And they decide to explore inside. *facepalm*
So one of them fires his tommygun at Kong. It jams. He tells everyone else to get back across the log, before shooting a handgun at a 19 foot tall silverback gorilla. Here we have the log scene. You know the one from the first movie, with the guy under the roots getting fingered at before everyone else dies? In this log scene, Kong just starts grabbing the log and shaking it right away, and the people hang on like termites instead of falling off. Some of 'em fall including Random Asian Guy. Then the whole log falls, but nobody on it dies. It kind of walks its way down either side of the cliff, to deposit them with yet another ear shattering boom on the floor of the chasm.
Then the mutant giant space leeches (no, they have no resemblance to real leeches, or any organism on Earth in fact) start attacking. They're very slow, yet Random Salty Sailor #2 manages to get sucked apart by them. (External stomachs with teeth, what were the producers thinking?) Meanwhile everyone else is battling giant carnivorous crickets, including one lovely scene where Innocent Cabin Boy is shooting crickets off of Male Leading Role with a tommy gun, with his eyes closed. I kid you not. Every time the boy pulled the trigger, he closed his eyes. Of course, neither did he hit the main love interest. I guess they must have known beforehand that mister screenwriter couldn't get hit.
A touching scene, in which the fanatic director is shocked to find his precious film cannister busted open to the light.
The giant centipede/scorpion things would have finished them off, had the salty captain not showed up, swinging back and forth from a vine, firing his automatic rifle to cover them while they climbed out. Everyone's about to give up except mister screenwriter, who Has to Save His Girl. The director takes advantage of this, hoping to capture Kong (with official Live Animal Chloroform), and tells the guy to just bring her back safe. Then they go back and set a trap, while screenwriter goes in search of the helpless female. Ook ook.
Oh... then the Tyrannosaurus scene. She's running through the forest blindly, having escaped Kong, and runs into some komodo dragons on steroids. One's chasing her into a hollow log, whereupon it gets pulled out and killed right in front of her. Unable to see what killed it, she contemplates this for a while, before a curious giant meter long millipede decides to put its feelers into her mouth. Then another giant bug crawls up her arm and she's had enough. She scrambles out of the log, safe from the insects! Wasn't there something she was forgetting?
Oh yeah. A Tyrannosaurus Rex is eating the komodo dragon. Upon seeing her, it immediately gives chase, despite having a full meal it needs to finish. In fact it uses its meal as a weapon, battering her left and right with dead komodo dragon. So she's about to die or something, when suddenly she finds a hiding place in plain sight. It works. The dino loses interest, turns and leaves. Of course the second tyrannosaurus right next to her seems to be very interested.
So right before the second tyrano eats her like a bug, Kong comes and starts jaw punching it. He's trying to carry her while fighting the dinosaur, weird montages of lizard and ape arms legs and heads and her whooping in the middle of it. Then the third Tyrano comes in. The third Tyrannosaurus Rex. Going with what we know, huh Peter Jackson.
So Kong beats the three tyrannosauruses into the ground, breaks one's jaw in a very stupid fashion, stuff like that. Lots of reptile goo everywhere except on the female lead role. Um... then Kong takes her and they become friends again, and he shows her a nice view he likes to watch. Her experience in vaudeville theatre once again fails to impress the ape. She falls asleep in his arms.
Cue the male lead role. He comes wandering in past the giant swarming carnivorous bats and finds her sleeping in Kong's arms. They touch tenderly. Kong wakes up. So while Kong's attack on this "rival" causes the bats to swarm and cover the ape's body, the screenwriter escapes with the vaudeville girl. Just as insane director had planned. They go running for the boats, and just as the gorilla's upon them, the director lets down the bridge.
Trap works miserably, K? I mean, grappling hooks? C'mon! In the end Kong takes a bottle of liquid chloroform to the face, thrown by herr director himself in a mad scramble for the boats. Kong begs for her hand, she cries, he goes down. Awwww.
To be honest I did cry at the end of this movie. You know how it ends. I also cried during The Titanic though, so my emotional health is no way to gauge the value of a movie.
Back in New York! I know, let's put an insane and aggressive 19 foot gorilla in front of an auditorium full of cheering humans! Don't worry, his hands are shackled with "chrome steel." My sib whispered at this point, "I bet he breaks those chains like twigs." I whispered back, "Yeah... yeah you're probably right." 10 minutes later he breaks those chains like twigs.
10 minutes... did I mention this movie took an incredibly long time? It was a 3 hour movie. 3 hours, with scenes like the one where the vaudeville girl and Kong are giving each other tender looks stretching for nearly 5 minutes at times. The carnivorous cricket scene alone took about half an hour I gauge. This movie dragged so bad it was boring even with so many loud scenes swarming with action.
So Kong's in New York, he smashes a bunch of stuff, chases the male lead in bloody vengeance, who leads him to the female lead. Kong and the female lead go ...ice skating. Isn't a tropical creature going to be kind of cold in New York in the middle of winter? Putting that aside, they go ice skating. Ice skating! Why in the holy heck would they interrupt the movie for an ice rink scene between a 19 foot gorilla and a human vaudeville actor?
A tasteful round of some sort of explosive blows apart the ice on the lake, sending Kong scrambling. He runs away, climbs the empire state building, pauses to admire the view, and teaches the vaudevilless that he now knows the word 'beautiful.' WWI era airplanes come around, start shooting him, here's the end right?
Well, no. First the male lead role has to get in the elevator and wait all 100 floors. Kong has to climb to the top of the building by himself, get shot, get shot at, jump and take down one of the airplanes. The female lead has to climb the ladder, get the ladder shot out from under her, get saved by Kong, placed inside, climb the other ladder to reach him. She does some sort of touching "no don't shoot him you bastards!" thing that makes the airplane pilots veer away. So they come back from the other direction and shoot Kong in the back. She's crying, he's sinking lower, and finally he falls quietly to the street 100 stories below.
The last scene was touching, but the whole movie was a terrible ordeal. I don't recommend anyone see this unless you're a diehard fan of the original movie, and even then expect the new one to deviate in ways that aren't always a good idea. One person I was with suggested that there was a lot of film on the cutting room after Kong, and it did seem broken and spastic, with some scenes dragging on, others flash forwarding. At 3 hours though, it's longer than most feature length films. Worth it though? Mmm...no. Go see Narnia. You must see Narnia. The power of Aslan compels ye! Beavers! I looooove the beavers! More about that later mebbe.
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