Just a few thoughts on KING KONG

I had written this a long time back, somewhere around the time when the movie was released. I don't remember why I had not published it at that point of time. Maybe I thought it was not worth publishing!! Anyway, looking for some other file, I tripped on this and so....

A truly entertaining movie that keeps you enthralled, right from the time the screen goes up, till the end, when the credits roll up. Pure Magic. One cannot but be awed by the fabulous journey of drama, adventure, fantasy, thrill, joy, excitement and heart rendering sorrow that unfolds on the screen. All this, just for the price of an entry ticket!
At the helm of all this, is the man, the lord of the ring, Peter Jackson. The soul, heart and mind of a very imaginative child are confined inside the frame of this bearded man. The scene involving two dinosaurs, King Kong and the blonde heroine, all swaying, tangled in the vines of a tree, is ample testimony of the imagination and creativity of that child. With this movie he has paid tribute to the 1933 original version; a movie, that had captured his imagination as a child and had made him decide to choose film making as his career. He has lived up to the expectations of viewers like me who had been mesmerized by his “The Lord of the rings”
The vintage cars, clustering along the roads in the opening scene, tell the period in which the movie is set. It is the 1930’s. A little later, the sight of a huge ship, sailing across the vast expanse of the mysterious ocean, engulfed by darkness and mist gives a foreboding of the events that are waiting to happen.
One more striking aspect of the movie was the makeup for the people “acting” as tribes in the “Skull Island”. It is difficult to come to terms with the fact that they are just “acting”. The makeup has blended so well; you feel that you are watching a group of real, primitive tribes from the deep jungles of Africa, unleashing their fury on a group of hapless victims. It sends a chill shooting down your spine.
If that was not enough, a few minutes later (70 minutes after the movies start) enters the Hero. King Kong. The hairy monster’s massive size is enough to make your hair stand on its ends! Though many articles and reviews quote the size to be 25 feet, he looks a lot bigger. The efforts put in by the special effects team, is jaw dropping. The animation in scenes like the clash between the dinosaur and King Kong has you applauding, but the scenes, like the one in which the entire film crew runs to save themselves from a horde of dinosaurs, makes you feel it could have been better. In trying to depict the action from a very complex angle, the overall effect had become jarring.
Peter Jackson must not have been satisfied with just the dinosaurs to trouble the hero. He simply has lined up a number of creatures (some have you squirming in the seat!) to battle their wits against King Kong.
The tender love for the lady, which dwells in the heart of the hairy brute, has been brought out well. If the way he scales up the empire state building, clutching her in one hand, makes you to clap and whistle in joy, then the way he goes down, all alone, felled by the bullets from the gliders that target him, makes you sit quietly, as a tear escapes your eye. As you get up to leave, the words of a little village girl, who must have happened to see a movie of this kind for the first time, reaches your ears. “Mama, arumayana padam mama! Supera irundhuchu!!” (Uncle! That was a superb movie)

That is “King Kong”. A treat to watch.