King Kong: Everything Old Is New Again

Anyone who reads this blog (hello...anyone???) knows I am kind of ambivalent about remakes. I love nostalgia on the one hand and think it's always fun to revisit works of art from days gone by, hopefully to glean some new nugget of insight into the work itself. On the other hand, I worry that we're all getting a bit lazy with our creative impulses and are becoming content to just mine themes and characters that have already made an impression on our hearts and minds. So when deciding to make a remake I think the creators really need to have a strong reason, something significant to add or exemplify that has never been included before. If not, the work ends up begging the question "why?", since the original is often complete and fine on its own and needed little or no expansion.

"King Kong" is a work that might be an exception, in that while the original was really quite successful in its own right, we now have the 1976 remake in our minds as well, a film that I didn't think was awful, but cannot be considered the definitive version of the tale. Given that, and the new advances in technology, I think another Kong remake wasn't really out of the question. The trouble always come with answering the question "how are you going to A) make it different and B) remain true to all the elements that made the original successful."

Peter Jackson's answer to that question seems to have been to concentrate more strongly than ever on the pathos and tragedy in the relationship between Kong and Ann Darrow. He spends more time than any of the previous directors on their relationship, and helped by the magic of special effects, seems to mine more emotion from it as well. That seems to have been the major stamp he has left on this remake; nearly everything else, the plot, the characters, and the setting (mercifully returned to the Depression era) are basically unchanged.

Is it enough to warrant an entire new film? Sure, why not? I was very impressed with Naomi Watts in this film, going from a somewhat naive struggling actress who is becoming desperate to put food on her table to a young woman who finds herself unable to sell out this massive beast that has touched her heart, even at the expense of fame and fortune. She really grows in that jungle, and discovers herself, unlike most of the men, who remain dedicated to their goal of getting rich and/or famous, at nearly any cost.

I think placing the film in the 30's is key to this underlying theme of greed vs. conscience. In the 70's version, where the economy wasn't nearly as bad, you didn't quite have the same kind of empathy with these desperate souls who seem to be just greedy on the surface but are really being propelled by desperation and fear into risking their lives and souls for the sake of a dollar. Most of the main characters are either unemployed or nearly so, and all are eager for some kind of financial security. That of course doesn't excuse the way they exploit Kong, but it does go a long ways toward explaining their behavior and making them human for the audience.

There are a few other slight differences betweent this film and previous versions. This film's Jack Driscoll, while still heroic, doesn't seem to register as strongly as past versions (in this respect I think Jeff Bridges Driscoll may be the strongest of all, to be honest). For some reason Brody's Driscoll just seems to be more restrained and quiet than other versions; the one thing I remember most is his seemingly endless supply of long, longing gazes at Driscoll. I never felt as though I knew him like I knew Carl Denham or Ann Darrow.

Also, Kong is less savage in this version. While previous Kongs wantonly murdered innocents on the streets of New York, this Kong just seems to push things and people out of the way, and seems less angry than confused and irritated. Each time he grabs a girl that he mistakenly thinks is Darrow, rather than killing them he just kind of tosses them aside softly. The older Kongs might have bitten their heads off!! This is again probably a wise choice by Jackson; it makes his final stand on the Empire State Building all the more tragic because it just doesn't seem like he really has to be killed. It's kind of hard to argue that with previous Kongs who were chewing up and crushing people left and right.

The adventure scenes in the film are obviously much more sophisticated than past versions. The brontosaurus stampede, the fight with the T Rexs, the creepy crevass scene and the battle between Kong and the giant bats were all visual feasts. Though I have to say at times the film kind of suffered from "Indiana Jones" disease, that is, it kept throwing obstacles and near misses at the characters at such a breakneck pace your suspension of disbelief was really taxed. I won't give too much away, but there were moments in a couple of those scenes that just seem way too stylized and choreographed to me; the characters would have died had things happened that way in real life, period.

I guess I come away from the film thinking that while I didn't glean a lot of new insight into the story, a whole new generation of kids might have been exposed to something they wouldn't have been otherwise. It's highly unlikely modern children would bother to rent the older versions, and here we have basically the same themes with modern pacing and packaging. That is probably a good thing. I think any time people are exposed to themes of greed vs. virtue and the corruptive influence man can have on nature, it's a net gain. And these themes are powerfully conveyed in the 2005 "King Kong".