I saw King Kong last night at a sneak preview.
It’s a truly grueling film, that’s for sure. This is telegraphed pretty much from the beginning, in that the opening half-hour is one long meditation on what it feels like to know, somehow, that some very big shit is going to go down in your life sometime soon. This is where the contrasts with Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films first begin: It’s a lot easier to get an audience to swallow this sort of rendezvous-with-destiny business if you’ve got wizards and elves and magic rings by way of an explanation. After setting the film in no uncertain terms in the Great Depression of a very real Earth, Jackson’s asking a lot to get us to run with his “something’s gonna happen” moments. But goodwill goes a long way, and surely this project has inherited more good vibes–from Rings and Kong fans alike–than any film in recent memory.
Once again Jackson proves he’s a horror director in blockbuster director’s clothing. Rings gave him this opportunity with its orcs, wraiths, giant spiders, flying monsters, cthuloid water creatures and so forth; in Kong, though, the first glimpse of real horror comes in human form, with the truly terrifying (and studiously multi-ethnic-beneath-the-make-up) native tribe that waylays the protagonists’ ill-fated filmmaking expedition. And in much the same way that Rings was able to incorporate disparate and entirely unexpected horror references (Aragorn’s dreams echoed Fr. Karras’s in The Exorcist; Shelob’s lair was reminiscent of Leatherface’s), the natives call to mind mondo/cannibal exploitation flicks, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (there’s a lot of Indy present here, and not just because they share the same sort of pulp/serial source material; the Indiana Jones movies are source material themselves now) and the booing old hag from The Princess Bride (no less potent a source for nightmares for coming from a romantic action-fantasy comedy).
The action sequences are tremendously grueling. Don’t get me wrong–they’re just as exhilarating and exciting as you’ve heard–but it’s a demanding exhilaration. Jackson is an immensely talented director of physicality, and so much of Kong‘s action centers on the simple act of maintaining one’s balance in precarious positions. Try to imagine the staircase sequence in The Fellowship of the Ring stretched out over the course of about two hours, with dinosaurs and giant centipedes and a 25-foot gorilla running up and down the steps too, and you’ll get the idea. It’s exciting, but exhausting. You’re left breathless in both ways.
Speaking of giant centipedes, it would appear that once again Jackson’s exploiting the audience’s fear of creepy-crawlies writ large. (More shades of Temple of Doom…) What’s shocking about it here is how really gratuitous it gets at one point. For upwards of five minutes, Jackson dumps giant insects of every conceivable type upon his hapless voyagers, in once case resulting in the most memorably gruesome death in a blockbuster movie that I can think of. (You’ll know exactly what I’m talking about, and you’ll be completely grossed out, I promise.) To do another Jackson-to-Jackson comparison, imagine the climactic scene of Heavenly Creatures, only with leeches the size of ponies.
Then there’s Kong himself. The CGI work is landmark, but what’s most impressive is how well his might is conveyed. I was put in mind not of other giant-monster movies but of Clive Barker’s monster-run-amok sine qua non, Rawhead Rex. Kong is not the sadistic brute that Rawhead is, but in Jackson’s hands he’s effortlessly destructive, which makes when he does put some effort into it even more frightening. Considering how much the film rests on making Kong sympathetic–and he is; boy, is he ever–it’s almost miraculous how well Jackson did in making him scary as well. His final rampage through New York City gets laughs at some points, and again you’ll know exactly when and why, but it’s those points in particular that are the most troubling. Yes, you think, this is a giant, angry animal; and yes, this is what a giant, angry animal would do. He’s an innocent, but he is also a remorseless killer. And the way that remorselessness is embodied in Kong’s trademark act of discarding the corpses of his victims, during which process they often become corpses, is really haunting.
And the Empire State Building climax–well, I guess no spoiler alert is necessary here, but still, I’ll try not to say too much beyond the fact that if you are at all afraid of heights, you will be on the verge of a panic attack by the time it’s all over. There’s a bit involving a broken ladder that will make your hair stand on end. Again, you’ve got to marvel at Jackson’s knack for teasing out the visceral, physical nature of our relationship to what’s on screen. There’s so much potential for fear there, and he uses it all.
And what to say of the film’s underlying theme, of the exploitation of mystery by charlatans? Only that the scariest thing is that we are at least halfway into the movie before we realize that’s what’s going on, and kudos, believe it or not, must go to Jack Black’s performance as Carl Denham for that. Sure, at first we think they’re a little sketchy, a little rough around the edges, but they’re not such bad guys–he’s not such a bad guy, right? But. Actually, strike what I just said–the scariest thing isn’t that we don’t realize that, but that Denham doesn’t realize that, not until the very end.
Well, that’s your blockbuster entertainment. A ton of fun at the movies, an all-time-great adventure flick, and oh yeah, genuinely chilling horror. You should certainly go see this movie.