Peter Jackson
King Kong

Do you remember the uproar surrounding director Peter Jackson when his King Kong was released? A wave of critics pointing fingers at Jackson, accusing him of ruining the original 1933 version, others calling him a genius, people going crazy at the premieres and others unable to reach the film's end, disgusted by the excessive durations and exaggerations... in short, what a MESS! Today the storm has subsided, and sadly, I see the King Kong DVD resting peacefully on store shelves; everyone has forgotten that storm. Millions of dollars and years of production for two months of turmoil, and then oblivion! It doesn't seem fair. King Kong is part of our collective imagination; for better or worse, we all grew up with its various films. Everyone says the original '33 version is the best, but I wholeheartedly disagree. So today, after some time, I want to write a review of the film and express my opinion on the King Kong series, stating confidently and proudly that Peter Jackson's version is the best of all... not for its exaggerated and ridiculous special effects, but for one simple and wonderful reason: the element everyone knows about in the King Kong world but wasn't developed in the original version—the LOVE STORY between beauty and the beast.

Let's start at the beginning: King Kong from 1933. It all started with this film, a woman being kidnapped by a giant ape on a mysterious island, and the beast ends up falling in love with her, sacrificing his life to save her... this captivating plot managed to fascinate the entire world and inspired numerous directors to create various remakes and unofficial sequels... BUT BE CAREFUL!!!!!!!!! pay close attention... from my point of view, King Kong '33 was an "inspiration," a starting point, an "idea" that later drove various directors and producers to create (to script) what we truly know of KING KONG, namely, what are the characteristics that have become part of the collective imagination of people? Above all, it's the story of impossible love between beauty and the beast, the gorilla and the girl exchange a great, unique feeling, the pure instinct of love between two different species... a bond destined to end in death... but in the first version of the film, it's not like that at all! The gorilla is attracted to the girl in a crude, fierce, inhuman way, Kong (a stop-motion animated clay puppet) does nothing but bellow and make animalistic cries throughout the film; the director doesn't humanize the gorilla at all (while real gorillas are much more human and not "boorish"), but the most important thing is that the girl DOES NOT FALL IN LOVE with Kong at all! She is terrified from beginning to end, and when Kong falls from the skyscraper, she doesn't care at all! (a slightly sorry face, as if to say "poor beast") But the whole world has a different idea of Kong; everyone knows that the final skyscraper scene is tear-jerking, with the girl crying and shouting at the soldiers to stop, so probably many have never seen the first version and met Kong in the 1977 version produced by De Laurentiis where the girl becomes attached to the gorilla and cries for his loss... For me, the story of King Kong is this: the impossible love between human and ape, this is what fascinates people!

Peter Jackson has been absolutely the one who could best express this aspect of the story, the love story between beauty and the beast is undoubtedly the best in all King Kong cinema. Jackson did justice to this aspect, neglected or little-attended by his predecessors by giving the touch of poetry and magic that was needed. The scenes where the girl and the gorilla pause to watch the sunset are UNFORGETTABLE; between a man and a beast, there are certainly no love declarations or silly courtships like "what are you doing tonight?" but the purest elements of human nature come into play, the instinct! an exchange of glances between two different species that can express more than a thousand words, nature that can move and bring together even two such different creatures. The sequences are extraordinary, the music excellent, and the finale on the skyscraper is among the most touching I have ever seen. The final exchange of glances between beauty and the beast on the skyscraper before the fall is simply SUBLIME, not to mention the walk on ice, which, although surreal, offers a poetic touch not seen in cinema for a long time.... Thanks to these elements, I consider KING KONG an almost masterpiece!! I say almost because I am not here just to praise the film; on one side, I was struck by the "emotional" story, on the other, the disappointment with the film's development... exaggerated and ridiculous computer special effects, action scenes bordering on absurdity and the usual "Lord of the Rings" clichés to which Jackson has accustomed us, this computer use in an exaggerated manner is now making me sick.

Then, however, I understood something:

Peter Jackson did not want to make a simple remake, Jackson's was a dream he had been carrying since he was a child, and his film is nothing but a realization of his fantasy. Indeed, when a child sees a film and is struck by it, they don't just admire what they've seen, but like all children, they start to use their imagination and expand all they have seen. I imagine Jackson as a child, before going to sleep, fantasizing about the world of Skull Island where he and his friends escaped the attacks of huge brontosauruses and were attacked by hundreds of monsters. It's normal for all children to emulate and fantasize after seeing a film that impressed them, but Peter Jackson is a multimillionaire adult child! and with his money, he did nothing but make a remake of his favorite film, staging his childish version, his King Kong is nothing more than the '33 film seen with his imagination! Hence we face 180 minutes of film with exaggerated scenes where heroes escape brontosauruses by running under their feet and delivering kung fu kicks, falling from 10 meters high and landing unscathed, T. rex swinging like Tarzan, and millions of sequences at the edge of reality. That was what was spinning in the director's head, but almost no one listened to him because people do not live inside his head and did not appreciate the over-the-top sequences that could very well have been cut. I greatly admire Jackson's choice to take money from his own pocket to prevent the film from being cut.

A director who is not swayed by potential negative reactions from people to an overly long and exaggerated film, and who PAYS out of his own pocket for artistic freedom... something we're losing in cinema! Personally, I am not in favor of all those exaggerations in the second part of the film.... if the scene with the brontosauruses and giant insects (and also the ship arriving at the island playing pinball among the rocks) were cut, King Kong would have been a MASTERPIECE!!! in my opinion, 120 minutes would have sufficed!!! (but I repeat, I respect the director's choice).

In conclusion, I think the film, beyond the absurd actions, is of good value and above all in every frame you can breathe love for cinema, almost a tribute to the big screen made by Peter Jackson... fantasy, spectacle, emotions... what's gradually disappearing in cinema.