Sadocinemasochism: King Kong

A few months ago, I saw the movie King Kong. I wasn't sure what to say about it for a while. I thought that it might be mocking the conservative idea of the slippery slope1 when it is applied to homosexual marriages, as the movie was really a love story between an attractive idealistic actress and a giant gorilla.
I decided that interpretation of the movie was unfounded and probably just a coincidence. After much thought, I realized that this movie is the way it is due to lack of courage. This is not the movie Peter Jackson wanted to make. This is the movie he made because of his lack of will. Peter Jackson wanted to make King Kong vs. Godzilla, which is what I was also hoping he would make, but instead he just made regular King Kong with some overdrawn dinosaur fights. During the entire movie Adrien Brody, playing a playwright, spends his screen time trying to make eye contact with Naomi Watts, the afore mentioned idealistic actress, and then trying to woo her back from the monkey. His role is symbolic of Mr. Jackson. During this project I can imagine Mr. Jackson trying to clearly see and make eye contact with his masterpiece to be, King Kong vs. Godzilla. Unfortunately studio executives (Giant Selfish Monkeys) got involved, stole Mr. Jackson's love away from him and he had to try and win it back. He won it back by spending too much time having the ape fight the dinosaurs, which is what his entire movie was originally to be. Unfortunately, Mr. Jackson never really regained his movie back. This is seen by Naomi Watts (the ideal movie) running away to the top of the Empire State Building (the theaters) with the giant monkey (studio execs) only to be shot at by airplanes (the artist's spite and anger from having his precious art raped for money). Readers may say I am overcritical, but I feel sympathy for Mr. Jackson for having to endure what no artist should. Still, I am not sure that Peter Jackson is the risk-taker that most presume him to be. Readers become angry.

"Nonsense, Nonsense, blasphemy!" you shout as you hurl rocks in my general direction.
"Let me explain," is my only request, before I am stoned and thrown outside the village gates.

Things become rational, for the moment.

"What about the Lord of the Rings? Was that not a risk?"

Not really. Peter Jackson is part-hobbit. It was only natural for him to film these movies. Because of this little known fact, he knows the hobbits, and only had to pay them with fireworks, pipe tobacco and crumpets. Also, He already had a sealed viewing audience. He had all of the geeks in the United States watching it (roughly 2,814,216 people which is 1% of the population) and 60% of all females (82,832,137 people) because Orlando Bloom was cast as an elf. At $8.50 a ticket that's about 728 million dollars from box office sales, which isn't too bad, and that's not including random people who just like to see movies. After action figues, costumes and contracts for happy meals, the movie is definitely in the black. Therefore, little to no risk involved.

"But he uses wierd camera angles and random slow-motion sequences in action scenes"

No risky, but annoying. There is a difference.

"But he dressed up like a hobbit at the Oscars. That's courageous."

As I mentioned before, he is part hobbit, so it's not a real stretch. If Peter Jackson wants to prove, and he needs to, that he does indeed, as the youngsters say, have balls, he needs to go to the Oscars this year in a giant ape suit. If doesn't do that, he could at least remake Godzilla vs. King Kong.

Grade: B-, decent acting, the first half hour was delightful. Too much time in the jungle with nothing happening and too much time spent on people getting eaten by giant mealworms. No valuable lessons learned. Moments of very good writing. More moments of pointless action scenes.

1- The slippery slope is the moral decline of society. Once starting down that slope, one cannot come back up, as it is too slippery. Believers of slope theory believe that once homosexual marriages are allowed in the US, it will eventually lead to legalized marriage to animals. I'm not sure how, but that is the belief.