King Kong

Spoiler Alert!! If you don’t know the story already and don’t want to know then don’t read any further until you have seen it.

To start off, I think that this is a movie that needs to be seen at least once. It shows the many different aspects that characterize us as human beings including loyalty, bravery, compassion and fear (of the unknown). It even shows us the dirty side of humanity in greed and feeling like we are more powerful than we really are. The movie was quite long (3 hours) and I feel like this was a little too long to tell the story that was told, but I can forgive that for the sake of the special effects that many of these extra scenes exhibited. Speaking of special effects, this movie was a visual masterpiece. I knew which shots were effects shots only because it would be impossible to capture these things in real life. Beautiful.

Before I go any further I want you to know that I do not pretend to be any kind of serious critic. I know what I like and what I don’t and I will tell you those things. So what you will get from this review and others are merely opinions. In other words, I do not have any technical expertise in cinematography. Another thing to note is that I am such a picky movie watcher that you will hardly see a negative review from me. With that said I will continue.

The story embodies our fear of the unknown, greed, and loyalty. Kong is seen by all of the cast but one as a danger but that feeling is not unmerited since Kong is only nice to one member of the cast. She is the beautiful Ann Darrow, the actress chosen to play a part in a movie to be shot on Skull Island. The King becomes entranced by her beauty and spends the rest of the film keeping her out of danger the best he can. His battles rage from the island jungle to the streets and buildings of New York City. The only thing that Kong wants is to be with Ann but others on the voyage have other plans for him. The greed that drives many people is typified in Carl Denham, the young and ambitious film maker who is determined to finish his film. Instead he seizes the opportunity to capture Kong and cart him off to NYC by using Ann as bait without her knowledge. And just like many of us, he becomes drunk on the power that he thinks he wields. This, of course, is his downfall and ultimately King Kong’s as well. When Denham gets Kong to New York he attempts to harness the uniqueness of this find by showing him off to the world through a commercialized show. Of course Kong escapes and runs amuck while searching for Ann. Kong finds her and tries to get away from everyone pursuing him ending in the famous scene on top of the Empire State Builiding.

It was touching to see Kong fight to the end thinking he was protecting Ann. It was sad to see humanity react to what they don’t understand by destroying it. It was revealing to see how greed can destroy something beautiful. It was disturbing to see our need to be so entertained and distracted from reality all the time that we end up hurting ourselves. It was inspiring to see what happens when we care about something so deeply that we would lay our lives on the line.

Note to the parents out there: There are some very intense and violent scenes in this movie as well as some mild language. It might not be suitable for the younger kids.

Even though this movie was a tad long I still throughly enjoyed it and will see it again. Everything from the effects to the acting to the sound was awesome.

Brian