Monkey business ... Peter Jackson's King Kong is shaping up nicely
After a summer season that has prompted some observers to whisper that the big movie blockbuster may be nearing extinction, Universal has a lot riding on King Kong. In recent weeks the trade magazines have upped the ante with reports of a ballooning budget and a running time that has stretched to nearly three hours. Today the studio took the rare step of allowing journalists a sneak peek of some of Peter Jackson's raw, half-finished footage, introduced by British actor Andy Serkis. The lights went down and Kong stalked out from the mist of rumour and conjecture. He looked, it must be said, utterly fabulous.
For the record, Jackson's King Kong remake starts out as an exuberant pulp version of Heart of Darkness (primeval jungle, savage natives), mutates into a Lost World-style romp (dinosaurs, giant bugs) and winds up with some destructive monkey business in 1930s Manhattan. The centrepiece of today's preview was a bravura 20-minute sequence in which Naomi Watts's starlet flees from Kong and is promptly set upon by a gaggle of famished saurians. Sometimes Watts is seen screaming gamely against a blue screen. Occasionally Kong is depicted as a rudimentary bit of computer animation. And yet somehow it barely mattered. Even in its unfinished state, this was a brilliantly entertaining action scene.
This, in a nutshell, is how it plays out. Watts runs from Kong, hides in the rotten trunk of a dead tree, and is set upon by a pair of dinosaurs. Kong intervenes, fighting the beasts as he switches Watts back and forth between his fists. Inevitably there is a cliff to tumble over and a network of thick vines to scramble between. The whole thing is handled with pace and wit and an abandon that is almost (but never quite) ludicrous.
Of course, all the usual caveats apply. One fine scene does not necessarily make a great movie and any three-hour picture naturally risks outstaying its welcome. But the early omens are more than encouraging. On the evidence of the abridged, bonsai Kong, Jackson's latest is shaping up to be as big a hit as those other movies about the hobbits. King Kong goes global on December 15. I'm counting the days already.
