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Blogfest 2005 - Aug 4, 2006 - Printable Version
- It Wasn't the Planes that Killed King Kong....
by Mark Faulk
Tonight, I got suckered into watching King Kong. Not the original one with Faye Wray, not even the pretty good rip-off Mighty Joe Young with some girl who isnt Faye Wrayand not even the remake of the rip-off with Charlize Theron. This is how Hollywood works: King Kong was considered a groundbreaking movie for its time, and not just because of the controversial idea of a love story involving subliminal beastiality. Then, not long afterwards, Mighty Joe Young was filmed, an "original" story about some people who travel to Africa and bring back an oversized gorilla...well, here's the film synopsis:
Hollywood promoter Max O'Hara travels to Tanzania, Africa, and convinces Jill to bring her extraordinarily large gorilla, Joe, back to America. While in Hollywood, Joe is used in a stage production and is exploited to no end. It doesn't take long until Joe is sick of being mistreated and he escapes to run loose in civilization.
Yeah, pretty much King Kong Goes to Hollywood, but still, not a terrible movie. I'll admit that I got a little teary when Mighty Joe Young got knocked off...when I first watched it when I was nine!
And then, there's the NEW King Kong, the 14-hour long version by Peter Jackson, who did the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which obviously sapped all of the creative drive out of him by the time he decided to write and direct this giant piece of gorilla dung. Granted, I saw it on the small screen, but somehow I think that was a blessing, because well, I have this theory that bad acting is magnified exponentially along with the size of the image.
To give you an idea just how lame it was/is, here's the very first scene of an early draft of Jackson's script:
JACK DRISCOLL and his buddy, MATT HAMON are flying two of the CAMELS at the rear of the formation. An UPTIGHT BRIT - McKECKNIE, is flying alongside them. He's as JUMPY AS HELL, scanning the skies for enemy planes.
MATT looks around furtively. None of the other pilots are looking in their direction. With practiced skill, MATT reaches down for something in his tiny cockpit... HE STANDS UP, wedging the control column between his knees and turns back towards JACK'S Camel ... a BASEBALL IN HIS HAND!! With equal proficiency, JACK jams his control column between his knees and stands, brandishing a BASEBALL BAT! Both pranksters have to fight against the fierce slipstream as MATT THROWS THE BALL across fifty feet of sky towards JACK! He prepares to swing, but the ball FALLS SHORT, getting MINCED in JACK'S propeller! A quick look around to make sure no one is looking, and MATT reaches down again, grabbing ANOTHER BASEBALL out of the bag of balls he carries in his cockpit!
MATT PITCHES it back towards JACK ... he swings and smashes the ball into the side of McKECKNIE'S PLANE! He LEAPS WITH FRIGHT, his CAMEL wobbling in the sky as he frantically spins around, thinking he's been hit by enemy fire!
JACK and MATT sit in their cockpits, innocently looking the other way!
Okay, I'm sure all of you observant readers noticed the plethora of explanation points that Jackson peppered his script with. Theres a purely logical reason for that. Without said explanation marks, no oneand I mean NO ONE, would know that this movie is supposed to be exciting. Although, now that I read back on it, maybe Jack Black thought it was a wacky sex comedy, what with all the veiled references: "MATT reaches down for something in his tiny cockpit," "wedging the control column between his knees," and of course, "JACK jams his control column between his knees and stands, brandishing a BASEBALL BAT!" That would explain a lot.
Here's my summary of Peter Jacksons King Kong, starring Naomi Watts, Adrien Brody, and, in his first serious role, Jack Black (Jack Black in a serious role...hehe).
And...ACTION!
Okay, the movie started with Naomi Watts doing bad vaudeville routines, getting fired, and looking more or less convincingly morose. She ran into Jack Black, who is on his way to film Nacho Libre, and stopped off to see the giant monkey. Then, Adrien Brody, who played a script writer who gets conned into going to Skull Island with Naomi and Jack, looked appropriately perplexed by the fact that it was only a few years ago that he was in The Pianist.
Then I dozed off for a little bit, and when I woke up they were on the set of Night of the Living Dead: Africa Style, but luckily only a few bit characters and one obligatory martyr got killed, and they escaped to Jurassic Park, where they fought a bunch of dinosaurs and Newman from Seinfeld got killed, and then, King Kong showed up and got the hots for Naomi Watts and kicked some T-Rex ass, and Naomi did a vaudevillian lap dance for him and managed to be not in the least bit erotic while doing it...which, come to think of it, NOT arousing King Kong was maybe a good plan after all, because, you know, some things just aren't meant to be...or are they? Hmmmm, I wonder.
And then the phone rang, and I went into the other room to talk because Naomi Watts was distracting me with her lame vaudeville act, and when I came back her and Kong were sitting next to each other, sighing contentedly, watching the sunset together, and smoking cigarettes.
Meanwhile, the rest of the cast was fighting the left over creatures from Tremors, and Kevin Bacon got swallowed up, and then they escaped back to the ship and Kong followed Naomi to the ship and got captured, and then, I got up and made some popcorn and went to the bathroom, and then Kong went to New York, where, as luck would have it, they happened to be doing a remake of the original Kong on Broadway show, so he scored the leading role in that. Then he climbed the Empire State Building with Naomi Watts to watch the sunset again (winkwinknudgenudge) and smoke cigarettes, and then they killed him, and Naomi Watts cried while he was falling, because after all, where in New York was she gonna find a guy to measure up to King Kong? Then, Jack Black, in his first dramatic role...bwhahahaha...man that slays me!...got to deliver the closing line of the movie, which ended a little something like this:
cameras rolling....
And line!
"It wasn't the planes that killed him, 'twas bad acting killed the beast."
AND.....
*SCENE*
"Okay, that's a wrap, where's my limo? I'm late for Nacho Libre!"
And then...I woke up, and...wait, where am I? What? It wasn't a movie! It was real! And you were in it...and you...and you were in it too! And Toto was in it, and...Oh Toto, you got away! You got away!
Um...sorry, where was I?
Oh yeah:
And they all lived happily ever after...okay, not the huge (winkwink "huge" knowwhatImean?) gorilla, but the rest of the cast, who only sustained minor injuries to their careers. And Jack Black made it to the set of Nacho Libre, where he finally achieved his lifelong dream of starring in a big-budget blockbuster movie with an Oscar-caliber script.
THE END
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