I have issue with King Kong. A lot of issues.

Forget for a moment that the original Kong is a blatantly racist polemic masquerading as a pulp fantasy-adventure yarn. Forget that no one is willing to even countenance this contention, much less discuss it in a calm, rational manner (perhaps during a double feature: Kong and 1916’s Birth of a Nation). Forget that no one, anywhere, appears willing to question this movie’s informed superiority. Why criticize when you can parrot over seventy years of bland, generalized praise? Hell, its a classic, right? It was made before 1970, so it must be.

“The classic film will always be the classic film,” said director Peter Jackson in a recent magazine interview (citation lost thanks to sleep deprivation; sorry). He might’ve added, “After all, it’s a classic!” just to drive the stake right through the heart of his point.

The slavish worship Kong inspires in its fans honestly sickens me sometimes. (I’m sure this is how Star Wars and Trek fans feel about each other.) Because what is Kong, really? Its story, constructed of reliable pulp staples, is hardly revolutionary. Hell, it’s the kind of tale chain smoking writers of the age turned out in their sleep…or their alcohol induced comas. The down-on-her-luck damsel gets a one-in-a-life-time chance to go to an uncharted island and become a monkey’s plaything…or a dinosaur’s bite-sized snack. The damsel, once distressed, needs the quick thinking of a square jawed man to rescue her. He does, movie ends.

Except, it doesn’t. And even I, full of venom and vitriol, must appreciate Kong’s creators for their decision to drop the big ape into New York’s concrete jungle. Kong’s third act rampage through the Apple and his pointless, impersonal death at the top of the world have become iconic images. Their power has already inspired one remake…but no one liked it. Even I’ve grown annoyed with some of its more…dated…points. Rick Baker’s still the man, though.

“The seventies remake was more dated than the original,” Jackson said. “We didn’t want to do that.” No, Pete, you wanted to do ‘em better. Like, two and a half hours better, raising the level of character development throughout the piece from “non-existent” to mildly detestable, almost annoying. As Nathan said on his blog, “The new version makes the original look like a sketch for the full production.” Great minds run in small circles, Shumate. Jackson’s choice to remake the movie as a period piece allows me to close my eyes and imagine these are the real world events upon which the original movie was based. A throw-away mention of Anderson Cooper only enhances the illusion…as if these beautiful CGI shots of Prohibition Manhattan weren’t enough.

If nothing else they made it pretty. Oh, so pretty, New York City…

Rather than open with, “Is this the moving picture ship?” Jackson takes his time recreate 1933. Where he once was a flat, unblemished, straight-backed monument to movie producers, Carl Denham (Jack Black, quite a long way from Tenacious D) is here a shameless self promoter, two parts cranny barker and one part raving maniac. He looks to finish (or even begin) his new picture at any cost, even if he has to steal, scheme and hustle all of the other characters into joining him on a long sea voyage. “I’ve come into possession of a map,” he tells his unimpressed studio execs, “the sole surviving record of an uncharted island…never before seen by man….that’s where I’ll shoot my picture.”

The execs, already sweating Denham’s inflated budget, decide to can the “jumped-up little turd.” But Denham’s already gone, camera equipment in tow. All he needs is a pretty face to set in front of the camera.

As before, he find this in Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts), reimagined here as about as much of a human being as you’re likely to find in movies. I’ll admit some pre-show jitters about Ann’s reinterpretation….but Jackson co-writes everything with his wife these days, so there’s that hurdle. A vaudevillian actress struggling to survive, Ann is once again saved from getting busted for stealing fruit by Denham’s interventions. Heck, Ann’s the first character we meet after the opening montage, which is only as it should be. She may not get the good lines (Denham’s job) but she is the emotional lynch pin of the piece; good to see her as an actual human being with a life apart from sea voyages, square jawed men and giant monsters.

That life ends, of course, when Denham buys her a meal and makes his pitch. It is in these pitches that Jack Black makes the role his own and puts my jitters about his casting to rest. Black’s Denham comes across as the consummate user, just the kind of wild eyed snake oil salesman who fetched up on the left coast in Hollywood’s early years. (Their inbred decedents rule the roost even today.) Denham’s creative flexibility with the truth also shoehorns the other major player in this drama: a socially inept playwrite from “the federal the-ater” named Jack Driscoll.

Yes, Virginia, its 2005 (or 6, now) and look how far Hollywood has come? No unabashedly sexist hunks of man-meat in this movie, no sir. Here Our (human) Hero is a sensitive, artistic soul who bonds with Ann over the course of their long sea voyage. Makes sense, really. She’s the only woman on the ship and Peter Jackson was cleaver enough to show her reading one of Driscoll’s plays at film’s opening. She’s his biggest fan, and he’s a fucking writer (such a fucking writer, he even starts writing a play for her); their love was written in the stars…and on Jackson’s word processor of choice.

I’m not bitching just to bitch. Their love is necessary to the plot. If nothing else it keeps me from pondering the subtext of beastiality that runs through all of these “monkey meets girl” movies. Plus it gives the movie its “human interest.” Every movie needs that right?

Yet familiarly breeds contempt, and in this schizophrenic year of your Lord, 2006, I find myself with nothing but contempt for modern movie romances. How many times can you honestly reinvent the wheel? Other people are going to catch on eventually. Especially if all your leading couples keep falling into the same kind of syrupy, sentimental love we’ve come to expect from modern Hollywood.

Worse still, Jackson chooses to show their growing love through his new favorite directorial device: the lingering close up, backed by sentimental music. It’s the same kind of shameless emotional manipulation that so weighed down Return of the King. I’ve dubbed it “Lord of the Rings hangover,” and hope to God Peter gets over it before he moves on to his Next Big Thing.

At least he’s weaned himself away from slow motion. (Otherwise the movie would’ve been four hours long.) Thank my lucky stars. But Jackson squanders a good chunk of my good will later in the film by utilizes these same lingering close ups to illustrate the developing bond between Ann and Kong. I rather not think about beastiality while I’m watching a giant monster movie, Pete. Honestly, are they going to have a big kiss at the top of the Empire State?

No. We all know how this will end, despite the occasional bit of dialogue about “destiny” or “fate.” King Kong is an unusually strong film as a whole. As I said, they made it pretty, and nowhere more so than on Skull Island. Oh my God, Skull Island…

The days of blackface are well and truly gone. As are the days of noble savagery. This Skull Island is a beautifully detailed, brutal place of dinosaurs, giant bugs and the Best. Natives. Ever. None of this, “give you six of ours for that blonde you brought ashore” bullcrap. Oh, no. “Give her to Kong,” the old witch-woman says in a tone that needs no subtitles. These natives are obviously the last scion of a dying civilization, driven in all they do by that old, old, old, incredibly old-time religion. Ann’s sacrificial sequence is well worth the price of admission…as is Kong himself.

Apparently, Andy Serkis (Smeagol to you, internet punks) spent quite time hanging out with a gorilla named Zaire at the London Zoo. It shows in his performance as Kong, brought to photo realistic life by the good people at Weta. I’ll go out on a limb and label it Best. Kong. Ever if only because this time Kong’s interactions with Ann seem—for lack of a better word—natural. Ann’s still The Girl but at least she’s a girl from New York, smart enough to repeatedly attempt escape and creative enough to entrance Kong with her stage act. As my girlfriend said, speaking for Kong, “Damn, never had one that played back before.”

This simple element (little more than a pay-off of Ann’s opening vaudeville routine) goes a long way towards shoring up my suspension of disbelief. Gorillas are smart. Koko even had a kitten. The only possible way Kong could care about anything as miniscule as a blonde girl is if she managed to entertained him, to engage his interest.

Parallels to the process of movie making are obvious and these movies rise or fall on the fortunes of their monsters. At least Kong manages to become an honest character. That’s more than the original could pull off. No did to Willis O’Brian, just an observation. The real world presence of a human actor always makes a difference in the on screen presence of a monster…doesn’t matter if the actor’s wearing a foam rubber lizard suit or a green leotard covered with golf ball sensors. The difference is visible and when well executed it can make all the difference in the viewer’s mind.

Case in point: this movie, which managed to entertain me for several hours in spite of (or perhaps because of) the fact that it simultaneously pissed me off. Not for any overt racism. No, today’s Hollywood is gripped by a different, no less myopic malaise: sentimentality. Shameless, manipulative sentimentality. The linger close-up, the dramatic swell of coral music, the twin obsessions of slow motion and dramatic decompression…all of these elements are being shamelessly copied by every hack with a camera from Brentwood to Bell Air and I’m sick, absolutely sick of it. Who cares about the gay cowboy movie? How about a movie that treats me like an adult and leaves me free to feel whatever the hell I want to feel? How about a movie that isn’t edited around focus-groups and test market sessions? All of it’s trite, it’s all overplayed, shameless pap, and it’s the reason it’s taken me over a year to update this stupid website.

Nevertheless, Kong’s okay. Nothing we haven’t seen before, but made and prêtty. We giant monster fans must take what we can get. At this rate it’ll be years before someone else with a genre conscious takes up the baton.

Hey, Pete, wanna take a crack at Godzilla?

What? You think I can't be serious? Just watch me.