King
Kong (1976) (1/2
star)
review by Jon
Waterman
Fred Wilson, a smarmy oil mogul, packs up a crew to what could
be the largest untapped resource of crude oil left on the planet.
The place is an uncharted island that may not exist at all.
They sail away from Indonesia to this unknown destination,
but not before they pick up an environmentalist stowaway named
Jack Prescott. Jack is under the impression that there could
be a legendary creature on that island and he wants to make
sure it’s preserved. Well, before they can even find
out, the boat acquires a new passenger in the form of a young
starlet named Dwan (not a typo) who looks to be the lone survivor
of a yacht accident. The unlikely bunch find the island and
the creature and in the process, an adventure bigger than any
of them could have imagined.
They may not be able to imagine anything bigger, but anyone
who has seen the original
King Kong certainly can. I don’t
know if this was part of the strategy to differentiate itself
from its predecessor, but Kong only gets into one real fight.
Sure there’s the climactic bit with the planes (or should
I say helicopters – where I think they reuse some footage),
but the only creature to creature combat is with a giant snake.
And that only lasts for at most two minutes. You won’t
find dinosaurs or giant lizards or birds or any of that cool
stuff that made the landscape of the original so interesting
and magical yet dangerous. Without the action it’s really
not much of an adventure.
Also, writer Lorenzo Semple Jr. (“Three Days of the
Condor” and “Papillon”) gives the story a
much unneeded political overtone which symbolically culminates
on top of the World Trade Center instead of the Empire State
Building. Not only is it man vs. beast, but also man vs. man
vs. government backed anti-environmental corporation vs. interesting
story. Oh and just to remind you, one of the lead characters
is named DWAN! I think I made my point.
And the bad keeps on rolling. The sets are just as cheesy
as the script. In one scene Kong dries Dwan down (or should
I say dwon) by blowing on her, which apparently makes her fall
in love with him. There’s this ridiculous montage of
Dwan after she arrives on the boat (including a shower scene)
that is utterly pointless. There’s a scene where a piece
of Dwan’s clothing wafts through the air and lands in
the captured Kong’s hand and he proceeds to sniff it.
The whole thing is extremely laughable, but especially when
you consider this next piece of information. Kong walks and
moves like a man. Do you know why?
Because Kong is a guy in a monkey suit! How much worse can
you get? And it’s a bad actor inside there. Really if
they were going to do that, they might as well have given Kong
the ability to talk. Aside from that, this 40 year later remake
essentially has the same production values as the 1933
original.
It includes some unacceptably bad blue screen compositions,
the horrid set pieces, other various horrible special effects,
and I think I even heard the same scream of death used three
times in a row. Add to that an increasingly slow pace and an
extremely lame ending and you have the best argument to never
remake a classic movie ever again. This is pure trash.
respond to jon@filmbrats.com
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