Reviews
King Kong Is His Own Worst Enemy in This 70s Remake
I mean, 70s "re-imagining"...you know, because it’s “darker” than the original
King Kong 1976 starts out very promising. The cinematography before the appearance of King Kong is well done. I appreciate the nicely updated scenes when the island is initially discovered. That sequence is much better than Jackson’s remake with the crazy diseased-looking natives. The acting is acceptable. Except for Jessica Lange, who in most scenes seems to be on drugs with her spacey demeanor. It matches her character’s name of Dwan. That isn’t a typo. Her name is Dwan. Jeff Bridges does his usual Jeff Bridges imitation, which involves being cynical and outraged. You know, when he throws his arms up in the air and looks around while huffing.
The problem with the movie is King Kong. That’s a big problem when one of the main characters is the giant ape. If you haven’t seen the movie, Kong is just a guy in a gorilla costume. It may seem unbelievable, but it’s true.
At this point in film history they shouldn’t have even attempted to remake the original. The technology just wasn’t there in 1976 to create a convincing giant ape. They could have gone with stop-motion, but that would have looked dated and possibly just as bad as the ape suit. Even the stop-motion in the Star Wars movies—which was better than the older Harryhausen techniques—isn’t great, except when creating mechanical vehicles such as the Walkers. This movie was made before Star Wars and Empire so the updated effects weren’t even available yet. The other problem, even in contemporary movies, is that viewers are critical of manufactured replicas of creatures that really exist. It’s easy to tell something is fake when you’ve seen the actual animal. So, making this movie was a losing battle from the start.
Despite the monkey-suit being laughable in almost all of the scenes, the close-up expressions of Kong are OK. At times they’re even believable. Of course, they still just use a giant mechanical arm for the huge ape when he picks up Lange. I guess giant-arm technology hadn’t progressed since the 1930s.
The worst scene in the movie is the fight between Kong and the giant snake. It is Ed-Wood-quality. It’s nothing more than a guy in a gorilla costume rolling around with a really bad rubber snake. They should have just cut it out of the movie. It would have been one less embarrassing monkey-suit scene.
I tried to view this movie in the context of its time. I watch the original King Kong remembering the limitations of its time, so maybe the King Kong of the 70s deserves a little slack. It’s a strange relic of its time that you should view at least once.
Posted by Davey B. Creative on 06/30 • (0) Comments • Permalink
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