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kjwongsbrain · 7 years ago

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Contains 900% less screaming.

I've not done a movie review in a while. It's not that I haven't seen many movies lately, quite the opposite in fact, but I've not been properly motivated to write a review about any of them. It's not that those movies have been particularly bad ones either, quite the opposite again. I've been watching some really good movies from my to-watch list and since that list is very properly curated, the experience is usually a positive one.

No, the process of writing a review on this blog is often driven by the purpose of writing one. I'm not a film reviewer by any means. I'm just a person who enjoys movies. I enjoy every aspect of movies, not just the final product. I enjoy looking out for smart casting choices, great camera work, beatufiul music and sound production, and the likes. Films to me are a culmination of so many art disciplines that they are an incredibly dense single serving that explodes into a vareity of experiences and emotions.

But that's not the reason I write movie reviews and those of you who've read a selection of them will know that I have written lengthy (very lengthy. Shamelessly lengthy) reviews of things I enjoy and also things I didn't. But neither of those ocassions are done simply to praise or diss the film at hand. The real reason for writing them is to demonstrate just what makes a film something great and resonating on multiple levels, and also sometimes to demonstrate the exact opposite.

Some of my favourite movies to write about recently have been things like Arrival (not on this site, I wrote a short one on facebook) and Batman V Superman - one film I absolutely adore and am seriously considering putting it on my list ofgreatest movies in my lifetime (a list that is at the moment 3 films long), and the other I absolutely despise for just how many things it got wrong and how many things it doesn't understand about the comic-book movie universe we live in today..

And so I find myself now reveiwing something that has given me enough irk (sorry, it is going to be that kind of a review) that I am well motivated to write about it. There will be complaining, there will be self-entitled moaning, and all of it will not mean anything to the movie industry, but perhaps some of you might find it entertaining to read. Also the fact that I'm currently looking back at how little I've been writing and I'm starting to get annoyed at myself.

Remakes have long been part of Hollywood tradition. Remakes and reboots have been going even before color films were a thing. An example of this is Ben Hur, which has now been remade so many times it's only a matter of time before a intergalactic-space-podracing version of it is made next. Wait. It seems like this already exists. To dislike something for simply being a remake or a reboot is silly because even though some classic stories are classics for a reason, a touch of modernity or a recontextualizing of the premises can somethings offer a brand new experience even for those who are familiar with the story. Romeo and Juliet has probably been reimagined a million different times in a million different settings and at least a dozen of those have been decent. I think.

So I'm not going to bash Skull Islang for being a remake or a reboot or whatever the heck it's trying to be what with the DUCU (the Dark Universe Cinematic Universe, which is the name we will forever be using instead of 'monsterverse') and eventually a Godzilla VS Kong film. I am, however, going to put it side by side with the other Kong film that I have seen (because I am too lazy and uninterested in watching the 1933 one and the 1976? one), and that's the Peter Jackson one.

Boy, oh boy is this new one terrible. It's not like I am a super fan of the film Jackson made, but this turd makes that thing shine brighter than Gandalf the White.

I don't even know where to start with this thing. For one the writing is absolutely atrocious. The tone is so incoherrent and the interaction beetween characters so uninspired that even the charisma of one flaming hot superstar, Tom Hiddleston, couldn't save it. And I was just coming around to like Brie Larson but this is going to be a rather bad stain on her career trajectory. She's going to be Captain Marvel next and if the only other work people know her for is Room and Kong, well.... that doesn't look very good.

It's just idiotic dialogue that doesn't make any narrative sense that irks me so much. Sure there are a lot of character stereotypes that get mashed into filmls like these and most of the time it's not as bad as people think, but this one had the added bonus of also being tonally incoherent. There was an unpleasant whirlwind of serious and silly moments that no sentence or character in the film could be taken any bit seriously. There were snarky comments in dire moments, unnecessary idiotic lines dotted all over the place and characters that almost had no idea if they were to be taken seriously or made fun of. To watch John C Reilly flip from insane old man to serious wise man to out-of-touch caveman, all within a minute or so, is beyond ridiculous.

The plot is also a mismatch in so many departments. You have three different parties involved in this 'expedition' and at no point are the motivations of the characters ever clear or rational. I've talked before about movies that make it almost impossible to believe that any actions of its characters fall anywhere in the realm of rationality and how badly this hurts films. Even something as silly as Civil War creates a situation of conflict that is believable enough, and that's really stretching it, where you can buy into the premise of the film.

There's this one jarring moment in the film when the whole troupe of people suiddenly decide that they ought to follow Nick Fury to go hunt down the monkey and at no point in the movie were they ever required to follow him to certain death. Half of them aren't even soldiers and Hiddleston is a hired tracker who's on the island solely for the money. Shouldn't he be listening to his employer and not crazy army man with a grudge?

Brie Larson's unnecessary sarcasm was also very painfully written in. As were the half dozen throwaway jokes that didin't land because there wasn't any hint of this film being any sort of fun light hearted romp.

My favourite bit of the entire film is the red bandana soldier (I don't remember any of their names because they were all so irrelevant to the film) kept belting out something along the lines of "WHY IS NOBODY TALKING ABOUT HOW CRAZY ANY OF THIS IS?", and that's probably the crux of why this movie is so bad. Nothing in it makes any sense on any level and so I spent the majority of the movie laughing at it. Not laughing with it like a good comedy would do (by the way, I laughed a lot watching Adult Life Skills, a good movie for anyone interested in a lovely take on the whole 'thirty year old not growing up' type of story), but laughing at it for how stupid and silly the entire film was.

And then I went digging into wikipedia and found this statement - " Vogt-Roberts also wanted Kong to feel like a "lonely God, he was a morose figure, lumbering around this island," and took the design back to the 1933 incarnation, where Kong was presented as a "bipedal creature that walks in an upright position " And that to me is a shining example of how some directors justify their stupid decisions with this idiotic garbage and can't smell the scent of their own hubris infused farts. Kong in 1933 was a stop motion doll. Just because something is old and even if it was in the original, doesn't make it good. This is the whole 'member berry' thing that South Park spent an entire season talking about. It's a demonstration of how naive and immature a director can be when you see decisions like these being made and then the excuse that's given to justify it. That kind of explains the other slew of poor decisions made in the film when it came to the script, the style, the characters, the decision to play music while fixing their gear in the middle of a monster infested island, etc.

It reminds me of Jurassic World in the way that both these films clearly haven't got a clue what makes their predecessors such giants in the film industry. Films like these simply try to create moments and link them together with idiotic dialogue and unnecessary sequences rather than creating a proper narrative weight and emotional resonance. And then go on to make tons of money.

And then there is of course the entire arc of Kong that makes him such a great character to begin with. The essence of Kong as a character was really brought to a perfect cadence in the original plot's third act where Kong is captured and brought to the city. He dies, succumbing to the world of the modern man. That provides a gorgeous contrast to his dominance on his own little island. There have been reviews that have talked about this in greater length, and I agree with all of them. Without the tragic third act, this new Kong movie is simply a big beastie with no motivation and no personality. He's just smashing stuff. Sure they try to shoe in the whole 'protector of the island' thing, but unless it's framed in the cadence of his tragic end, none of it really means anything.

Kong was always a tragedy. The original 1933 film was billed as a horror movie and in many ways it was, but it will always remain as a tragic story and that's where the true personality of this character shines.

And so we have to do the dirty business of comparing Peter Jackson's King Kong with this one and in so many ways Peter Jackson made a far superior movie. One of my favourite scenes in Jackson's movie is the part that they encounter the giant slugs and insects. Jackson's choice of silencing the music in this sequence allows the viewer to feel the hopelessness of the situation for all the characters as they realise the circumstances they have brought upon themselves. But even the action sequences of Jackson's film are so much better. The legendary fight with the dinosaurs was a far better sequence than 100 foot Kong against 'The Big One'.

On a side note, I find that throwing one helicopter and hitting another when you're the size of this new king kong is like us throwing a stone and hitting another stone in mid air. You go try it. Not only is Kong a bit monkey, apparently he's a Major League pitcher as well. Unlike in the original and in Jackson's film you get to see Kong swat furiously and mostly unsuccessfully at flying airplanes, this King Kong can pluck a moving helicopter out of thin air and then chuck it at another moving one with destructive accuracy. No, Mr Vogt Roberts, this does not make the scene cool. That's like schoolboy Michael Bay levels of cool. Which is another way of saying 'idiotic'.

While we're on the topic of idiotic sequences, there's a sequence where lady photographer hears the sound of an animal stuck under one of the crashed helicopters and decides to help it and then SURPRISE! Kong shows up and plucks the helicopter off the ground. And I'm supposed to believe that a giant 100 foot monkey somehow snuck up on this lady and she didn't notice it coming at all. It's a normal idea for there to be a 'sudden' reveal or encounter between character and monster - it's one of the reasons the Alien movies do so well - but when it's a 100 foot ape, there's just no way it immediately looks ridiculous.

I've mentioned that I'm not exactly a big fan of Jackson's remake, but he's done so many things better than this one and you can tell it was a passion project for Jackson and even though he was granted a big enough budget after the success of the Lord of the Rings movies, he was faithful and true to not just the story, but Kong as a character as well.

This new movie is throws all of that in the bin and it feels exactly the way it was intended - as a necessary remake to set up the big fight between monkey and lizard. That makes sense that Kong's character is no longer important, his tragic arc no longer the definition of who he is, and the most important element of the screaming lady completely banished from the script. Say what you want about how we need more strong female leads instead of the helpless damsel in distress but I have a lot of respect for both Fay Wray and Naomi Watts for bringing the scream to life in their respective films. I rewatched Jackson's movie maybe a year ago and every scream Watts did was absolutely impressive. You go try it. You go try screaming like that and conveying the reall feeling of fear and helplessness in the hands of a CGI giant ape. That's some amazing work right there.

And without the final cadence in this new Kong movie, the whole movie is in fact unconsequential. None of what has occurred in this film actually matters. Kong did not grow as a character. All the humans suffer from Transformers level of inconsequence (they killed of poor Toby Kebbell without any rhyme or reason). And the fact that this film has actually recieved generally favourable treatment from the critics and the public means that we're going to invite more of these kinds of movies into our lives and also that Mr Vogt-Roberts will go down the path of many directors who've made stupid decisions and then get handed big franchises. I'm lloking at you Niel Blomkamp, you sci-fi traitor. This young chap is about to take on Metal Gear Solid next so it is likely that the ridicule of video game movies will continue. Even Duncan Jones couldn't save it with his Warcraft movie that was actually good and nobody liked.

So you can probably tell that I'm not invested in the DUCU at all at monkey business hasn't convinced me otherwise. In fact it's convinced me that this is an altogether terrible idea and it's going to add to the pain of already having to deal with franchises that refuse to die like Transformers and The Fast and the Furious. Now we add to that a slew of monster movies that'll take on the 'successful' style and tone of this ape caper.

Sigh.

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