Mud Songs

I’ve watched all three incarnations of King Kong in the past two weeks: The 1933 original, the best of the bunch for my money; Peter Jackson’s 2005 CGI-heavy remake which — although bloated with nearly 90 minutes of subplots about characters no one cares about — kicks ass when Kong is on screen; and now the 1976 version that presents us with a guy running around in an ape suit. If you’re going for camp value, then okay, maybe it works. But let’s be honest: The Kong scenes are boring. There’s no drama or intensity to any of the action. If you were 9 years old watching it on TV sometime in the ’70s and loved it then, the nostalgia factor could cloud your judgement enough that you might have fun watching it again as an adult. That’s the case for me with The Poseidon Adventure, but not here.

1h 09m. Peter Jackon’s version of King Kong begins at that point in the DVD, which marks the first appearance of Kong. You can start the movie there and not miss anything important, because just like the original 1933 version, the loneliness of this scary, fierce, misunderstood giant gorilla is the drama of story. The humans are window dressing next to the pathos that pour out of that big ape. If Jackson had cut at least an hour of the running time, kept his focus on Kong, and waited about 10 years to the point where CGI technology could do justice to his vision of Kong, he would have made a great movie. Still, it’s not hard to overlook these flaws during the Kong scenes, which are pretty damn spectacular. (I didn’t see the extended edition.)