The Guitar-Playing Gorilla Catcher

In a radio review of the newest iteration of King Kong, someone (I believe Stephen Hunter) mentioned that Jack Black is very good as long as you use him the right way. Looking at his bio, he's been in a lot more stuff than I thought, including Demolition Man, Waterworld, The Cable Guy, Mars Attacks!, and Enemy of the State. The first time I really remember him was Shallow Hal. But today I went to see King Kong and watched School of Rock on DVD, which had previously been recommended by my good friend Kerrie, wonderfulness personified. I don't know if this makes much sense, but he uses his face very well when he's on.

This is the third version of King Kong, with the previous two coming in 1933 and 1976. I would also give an honorable mention to Kingu Kongu tai Gojira, aka "King Kong vs. Godzilla" in 1962, which I like. I may or may not have seen the original, but the only stuff I really remember is the stock footage stuff everybody else has seen, mostly Fay Wray screaming in distress.

Peter Jackson (apparently about 75 pounds lighter than the last time I saw him) takes full advantage of all the CGI at his disposal, making enemies of all shapes and sizes for Kong and our heroes to fight. Every creepy, crawly, monstrous insect and reptile you can imagine (and some you can't) makes an appearance. Kong is of course extremely athletic, but in his fighting and maneuvering abilities you also see cunning, understanding, anticipation, and just a good overall sense of where he is and what he's doing. It works very well, I think, and is more impressive when you consider that he often does it while holding Naomi Watts in one hand.

You could also tell that they spent some time studying and thinking about gorilla behavior. How does he sit? How does he run? How does his face work? When he's holding something, what does he do with it? There's a scene where he rapidly jerks Ann Darrow back and forth, like he's shaking a soda can up so he can spray somebody. That seems like the sort of thing that comes from reading up on your subject (I'll be sure to ask Jane Goodall next time I see her).

Naomi Watts, I would like to point out, looks like TWGW. That was a major plus for the movie, in my opinion. If she liked me as much as Ann Darrow liked Kong, I'd take on large carnivorous dinosaurs, too. By the way, the big two-legged predators with lots of teeth are not Tyrannosaurus Rex. It has three fingers at the end of its arms, and the real t-rex has two. But I get the feeling that the dinos are just generic dino monsters, though, so that's no biggie. It could be that Jackson wanted to keep things as similar to the original as possible.

The movie turns on Darrow's relationship with Kong, and there are some funny and even tender moments as things go along. Not that easy to pull off when you're working with an actress, a green screen and silicon chips. Well done. Jack Black is good, Adrien Brody is okay. The rest played their roles well. Pretty good movie, I think.

As for SOR, pretty darn funny. I heard some people saying it was the funniest thing ever, but I wouldn't go quite that far. Black is the focus of the whole shebang, and you can tell he loves it. He comes close to getting repetitive with his schtick at times, but I don't think he actually crosses the line. I like all the kids, and that never happens. I thought the casting for the kids' parts is very good, and the main ones' characters are pretty well fleshed-out, instead of being stereotyped nerd/pretty girl/loser/fat kid/preppy/etc.

I'm probably missing out on the whole compendium of rock history and its influence on the film. Oh well.