Peter Jackson’s King Kong, as indeed are the two previous versions, is the story of two people lost in hostile environments. Anne Darrow (Naomi Watts), lost on Skull Island, and Kong, lost in Manhattan. Jackson is a self-proclaimed fan of Marion C. Cooper’s 1933 version of King Kong. His fascination notwithstanding, his King Kong betters the original in practically every respect. The CGI, of course, is incredible, the high point being the breathtakingly ingenuous scene where Kong fights off three T-Rexes single-handed, literally, as he cradles Anne in one hand. Modelled on actor Andy Serkis using the same technology that turned Serkis into Gollum in the stunning Lord of the Rings trilogy, Kong is lither, bigger and more expressive than ever before. Serkis, who spent a year studying gorillas in Rwanda, excels in turning Kong from a CGI character into something, for want of a better word, human. We feel Kong’s disappointment when Anne refuses to turn cartwheels for him, his sense of wonder as they sit watching the sunset, and finally his pain and bewilderment as bullets from warplanes tear into his body. Most importantly, Peter Jackson triumphs over the technologically challenged 1933 production not with eye-popping CGI but with humanity. Jackson is faithful to the original 1933 storyline although there are a few important shifts in the story. First, there is the length. Compared to the original 110 minutes, Jackson’s King Kong spans a Kong-sized three hours, where, over an hour passes before we even encounter the mighty ape. Peter Jackson makes good use of the slow build-up to acquaint us with Depression-era New York on one hand -- with its bread lines, Model T Fords, and pretty out-of-work actresses reduced to shoplifting -- and the ship’s crew on the other. We witness romance sort-of blossom between Jack (Adrien Brody) and Anne. Sort of, because true devotion awaits Anne on Skull Island, and that’s the only romance we are interested in. We hear muted rumblings from the crew, who seem to know that the voyage to Skull Island is going to be no walk in the park even if the park in question is of Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic variety. These opening 70 minutes are well-spent, a chance for the audience to take a deep breath before the roller-coaster ride begins. The other change is Carl Denham. A documentary film-maker himself, Marion Cooper had cast Denham in a relatively sympathetic light. Jack Black’s Denham comes across as a ruthless, fast-talking hustler with frantic eyes who can convince anyone, including himself, how they are all part of a noble cause, bringing hitherto unseen wonders to the knowledge-hungry public “at the price of an admission ticket”. It’s in character then, that when all his footage is lost after a tumble down a ravine, Denham would quickly revise his plans and decide to bring Kong himself back to civilization, in lieu of the footage. In the 1933 original, Jack Driscoll is the ship’s chivalrous first mate. Here, Adrian Brody’s Driscoll is a sensitive playwright, unwilling passenger on the ship, and not entirely convinced of his new role as knight in shining armour. In the 1933 production, Driscoll was the one who suggested the Air Force be deployed to bring down Kong. In the 1976 version, Driscoll, played by Jeff Bridges, was full of empathy for the ape in a suitably seventies fashion. Jackson pitches his Driscoll somewhere in the middle. Jack understands the connection between Anne and Kong, yet at some level, he resents it. He is torn, between empathy for Kong, and the possessiveness he feels towards Anne. Adrian Brody does a marvelous job of portraying that conflict. By far the most important shift that Jackson makes is in Anne Darrow’s character. In the Cooper production, Anne (Fay Wray), in spite of being aware of Kong’s protective instincts towards her, loathes him. Most of his overtures are met with rather tiresome and monotonous screaming. In Manhattan, she tells Jack how merely looking at Kong makes her feel the way she felt on “that island”. It would appear that Anne almost felt violated by Kong. Titillating shots of Kong trying to remove Anne’s clothes, albeit out of curiosity, in both the previous versions, further strengthens the sexual overtones. Jackson sidesteps that entire uncomfortable angle by lifting Darrow’s character from being a hysterical ‘screamer’ to a brave, intelligent, independent woman, who, in Roger Ebert’s words, “looks into the eyes of the great beast and finds something beautiful there.” As a result, Kong does not treat her like a mere plaything, but as an individual with whom he has developed a rare connection. When Kong first puts her down on his rocky perch, and starts roaring, Anne somehow guesses that he is trying to impress her. She takes a leap of faith by breaking into her vaudeville routine – turning cartwheels, doing a Chaplinesque dance and juggling rocks. This scene is a triumph for Serkis and the CGI team as we see Kong’s face run the gamut of emotions, from astonishment to unadulterated delight. From then on, we see a bond develop between the two. Kong is misunderstood by a civilization that decides he is a menace that needs to be put down, without making any real attempt to know him. Naomi Watts’ Anne is powerless to affect the ultimate outcome, but at least she is aware of that misunderstanding. In her empathy, she, like Kong, towers over the rest of the characters, and indeed the civilized world, which, almost as if by reflex, considers a source of danger anything that it cannot understand. Naomi Watts puts in a tremendous performance, especially considering the fact that, during filming, she had to constantly react and respond to something that wasn’t there.
To come back to my first assertion that King Kong has always been a story of two individuals in hostile environments, Peter Jackson seems to have been aware of it, and has consciously designed the two locations of the film (Skull Island and New York) to mirror each other in their hostility to strangers. When the Venture’s crew embarks on their search for Kong, they are caught on a forest trail by a raging brachiosaur stampede. When Kong breaks out of the theatre into the New York streets, he is caught in a stampede of motor vehicles that come and slam into him from nowhere. His confusion and blind panic mirrors that of the crew on the island. On Skull Island, Kong and Anne sit on Kong’s perch watching the sunset. Soon after, the winged creatures attack, and they are separated. On top of the Empire State Building, they watch a glorious sunrise. Then the air force planes close in, and they are separated yet again, this time forever. The message Jackson seems to be giving the civilized world is rather scathing, one that grabs us by the scruff of our necks and forces us to see how un-evolved we actually have remained in our dealings with the unfamiliar. The seeds of this idea were present in the two previous versions of the film. Jackson strengthens and shapes it in a way that can’t be ignored. In sum, Peter Jackson’s King Kong is a triumph. I was ten years old when I saw the 1976 version. It is to the director’s credit that during the final scene, my thirty-two-year-old self felt the same way as the ten-year-old boy whose heart broke to see Kong slip off the turret of the Empire State Building. I caught myself hoping, that just this once, the ending would be different. It isn’t. The ending is the same, because we, as a civilization, have refused to change.