King Kong Retrospective (1933, 1976, and 2005)

In the world of cinema, one ape stands above the rest as one of the most iconic creatures in film history; King Kong. In 1933, filmmakers Merian C. Cooper (who also became known as one of the primary figures in the development of the Cinerama projection technique) and Ernest B. Schoedsack co-directed a monster film about a giant ape who lives on a mysterious island known as ‘Skull Island’. There, he is discovered by a filmmaking crew that journeys there and is subsequently brought to New York, where he rampages around for a bit before climbing the Empire State Building, where he is finally shot down by fighter planes. This beloved tale of ‘beauty killed the beast’, in which the ape also falls in love with a young woman who is ‘sacrificed’ to him, still stands as one of the most famous films of all time. But over the years, the ‘Eighth Wonder of the World’ has gone through numerous onscreen interpretations. The latest of these, Kong: Skull Island, hits theaters this weekend and in anticipation of that, today I’ll be reviewing the King Kong films. Now, to be specific, I’m not covering every single film that is part of the official franchise. I’m only reviewing the 1933 original, the 1976 ‘re-imagining’, and the 2005 remake. Plus, I’ll also be looking at a 1962 crossover between Kong and Godzilla, which is being included solely because the new Kong film is part of the same franchise as the 2014 Godzilla reboot and a new version of this crossover is set to come out in 2020. Thus, I will not be reviewing Son of Kong, the sequel to the 1933 Kong that was released just nine months after the original (in the same year, no less), King Kong Escapes, a Toho-produced film that was, believe it or not, co-produced by Rankin/Bass (yes, THAT Rankin/Bass) as a live-action remake of a TV show they produced titled The King Kong Show, and King Kong Lives, a sequel to the 1976 Kong which, from what I hear… is just godawful.

KING KONG (1933)

We start things off, of course, with the original classic produced by RKO from 1933. By next year, this film will be 85 years old… and from the perspective of someone who watched it for the first time ever just a few days ago, it still holds up quite well. Sure, there are obviously some parts of the film that are now dated (e.g. some potentially racist stereotypes) but it’s still a highly enjoyable adventure story with a solid lead cast that includes Fay Wray as the charming leading lady Ann Darrow, Bruce Cabot as the rugged first mate Jack Driscoll who later falls in love with her, and Robert Armstrong as the eccentric filmmaker Carl Denham who leads the expedition to Skull Island. But, of course, the main draw of the film is its ground-breaking special effects that still look great today. Seriously, a lot of effort went into developing the visuals for this film. Most of the creatures in the film, especially Kong, were created via stop-motion animation by special effects pioneer Willis O’Brien. But then there were some other interesting things that they did to integrate live-action footage into the scene, like having a full-sized model of Kong’s head whenever he puts someone in his mouth, having the actors perform in front of a rear projection system, and having shots of actors composited in with shots of the stop-motion animation. And, again, as dated as some of these effects may have become, it’s still quite an impressive feat for a film that was made nearly nine decades ago. Obviously, Kong has seen a lot of other interpretations over the years but, no matter what, the original King Kong is still one of the most iconic films of all-time.

Rating: 5/5!

KING KONG VS. GODZILLA (1962)

(Disclaimer: As is common with a lot of the Godzilla films, there were different versions of this film that were made for the regions that it was released in. The following review is for the original 97-minute Japanese version and not the 91-minute version released in the U.S.)

There’s quite a lot of history surrounding this film. Arguably the first of its kind in terms of monster crossover films, King Kong vs. Godzilla was also the first film in which both monsters appeared in color. But early on in its development, it was almost going to be about King Kong going up against an enlarged version of Dr. Frankenstein’s monster, the original idea conceived by Willis O’Brien in 1960. Once the film was picked up by Toho, the studio behind the Godzilla films, it was reworked into a crossover between Kong and Godzilla, the latter of whom made a triumphant return to the big-screen after the climactic ending in 1955’s Godzilla Raids Again in which he’s buried in ice. Likewise, this was Kong’s first feature film since the original King Kong back in 1933. What follows is exactly what you’d expect from a Godzilla film; you’re not really in it for the plot, which sees a pharmaceutical company attempt to orchestrate a publicity stunt involving Kong, which eventually leads into a battle with Godzilla. Instead, it’s all about the fight between these two iconic monsters in the cheesy but entertaining definitive style of the Godzilla films; in other words, having two guys in rubber suits duking it out. Admittedly, though, this final battle is only at the very end of the film. Aside from that, there’s a brief confrontation between the two and there’s also a scene in which Kong fights a giant octopus that attacks the village on the island which he initially resides on. As such, some parts of the film do drag a bit. However, it’s ultimately worth it for the Kong-Godzilla fights. With that in mind, it’s easy to see why this has been one of the most popular films in the Godzilla series and I do look forward to the upcoming ‘remake’ in 2020 which, of course, is the main reason why this film was included in this retrospective.

Rating: 3/5

KING KONG (1976)

The first big ‘remake’ of King Kong came about in 1976, produced for Paramount by legendary producer Dino De Laurentiis and directed by John Guillermin. From what I’ve read, there was a lot of anticipation surrounding the film upon release. However, it only ended up being a commercial success, as it got a mixed to negative response from critics. So, with that in mind, is this take on the Eighth Wonder of the World as bad as some of the critics said it was? Well, not really; in some aspects, it’s even a little underrated. At the very least, the film is well-made on a technical level; cinematography, location/set design, etc. The key selling point of the film, like the original, is its visuals. In this iteration, Kong was portrayed by legendary makeup artist Rick Baker in an ape suit, and while Baker has stated that he wasn’t pleased with the final design, it does look great on-screen. There’s even one scene in which they have a full-scale, 40-foot-tall Kong animatronic, which was designed by special effects artist Carlo Rambaldi, who also worked on films like E.T. and Alien. Sadly, it didn’t end up working right and, thus, was only used for one scene; the scene in which Kong breaks free from his chains in New York. The only visuals that haven’t aged well, though, are the green-screen effects, specifically whenever Kong is holding someone in his hand. I watched this film on VUDU at the highest quality, HDX, and they just didn’t look good. The best way I can describe it is that it’s obvious whenever a green-screen is being used. Thankfully, most of the other visuals in the film are better by comparison, hence why the film ended up winning the Oscar for Best Visual Effects that year.

But while most of the film’s visuals are great, resulting in some great monster action sequences, the story isn’t as successful. Now, for the record, I don’t mind the changes that were made to differentiate the film from the original. Instead of the premise being about a film crew that goes to shoot at Skull Island, this film instead focuses on an oil tycoon named Fred Wilson who journeys to the island in search of oil. Once Kong is found, he’s taken back to New York and is used as a marketing gimmick for his company. And instead of climbing the Empire State Building, he climbs the towers of the World Trade Center in yet another equally memorable Kong finale. Again, I’m fine with these changes, but the film has an overall campy tone that I don’t think works very well. The acting’s hit-or-miss, too. Jeff Bridges is fine in the Jack Driscoll role (re-imagined here as Jack Prescott, a paleontologist) and Charles Grodin is enjoyably over-the-top in the role of Fred Wilson. Jessica Lange, on the other hand, is the big weak link of the film as she’s just too ditzy in the role of the Ann Darrow equivalent, Dwan. Thankfully, this didn’t immediately kill her career because, as we all know, she has done better in other projects. So, in conclusion, what do I think about this arguably infamous remake? Well, I don’t hate it, but I don’t necessarily love it either. It is well-made for its time and has some nice creature effects thanks to the legendary duo of Rick Baker and Carlo Rambaldi. Not only that, but the film did leave its mark on pop culture as evident from two former attractions at Universal Studios parks; the iconic King Kong Encounter from Universal Studios Hollywood’s Studio Tour and Kongfrontation at Universal Studios Orlando. Still, it just didn’t have the same awe factor of the original. Thus, as far as Kong remakes go, I prefer the following remake over this one.

Rating: 3/5

KING KONG (2005)

And, finally, we have the latest ‘remake’ of the original film; from 2005, Universal’s King Kong, directed by Peter Jackson in what was his first major project after the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Like the ’76 film, there was a lot of hype surrounding it, but unlike that film, this one fared much better with critics and audiences. Sure enough, it’s an excellent new take on the classic story of ‘Beauty Killed the Beast’. The story is more in line with the original and Jackson’s affection for the 1933 film is apparent throughout (e.g. using classic lines, featuring snippets of the original film’s score, etc.). At the same time, though, he does just enough to make his take on the story his own, like giving Ann Darrow more drive in this version than previous incarnations of the character. By comparison, Fay Wray’s take on the character in the ’33 film, while still undeniably great and iconic, was mostly just a damsel-in-distress that didn’t have much of an emotional connection with Kong. This Ann, on the other hand, stands her own ground against Kong and has a much more personal bond with him up until the very end. On that note, Naomi Watts does a fantastic job in the role of Ann and while Jack Black and Adrien Brody have gotten less positive responses as Carl Denham and Jack Driscoll, respectively (in Brody’s case, for being too bland, and in Black’s case, for being too over-the-top), I thought that they were both fine. The other big star of the cast? Andy Serkis, the king of motion-capture. Via the same process that turned him into Gollum in the Lord of the Rings films, he took on the role of Kong in this film, and the motion-capture effects for Kong are fantastic. Heck, a lot of the film’s effects are excellent. Sure, most of them are primarily CG-based this time around but they do their job in creating the world of Skull Island and the creatures that inhabit it.

There’s only one thing that really holds this film back, and it’s the one thing that everyone has said about the film; it’s too damn long. Clocking in at a staggering 187 minutes (and, for the record, that’s only the Theatrical Cut; the ‘Extended Edition’, released on DVD, buffs up the already hefty runtime by 20 minutes), the film takes its sweet time to tell the story and while I wasn’t necessarily ‘bored’ at any part in the film, at the same time I will admit that sometimes it can be a chore to get through. By comparison, the 1933 film was far better paced at a brisk 100 minutes (or 104 minutes if you add in the overture). Heck, even the 1976 film, which also had a slower pace to it, wasn’t as long; it was just a little over two hours. Simply put, there are quite a few parts in this film that would’ve benefitted greatly from some cuts, especially during the long, long, LONG trip to Skull Island. But, despite the arguably problematic runtime, it’s undeniably clear that Jackson was the best choice to do a new version of King Kong and he succeeds in doing so with this film. Now, I’ll admit that I watched this version first before the original. Like the 2009 Star Trek film, I had purchased it on iTunes and originally watched it on my iPod (and before any of you ask, yes, I managed to get through the whole three-hour film while watching it on an iPod). And while I now regard the original as the best version of the story (because, obviously…), I still have highly positive feelings towards the 2005 film, one of the best remakes of all-time.  

Rating: 4.5/5

Fantastic Four (1994, 2005, 2007) Film Series Retrospective

We are currently in the golden age of superhero films and Marvel is right at the forefront of this comic book revolution. Thanks to the Marvel Cinematic Universe along with films produced by other studios like Fox and Sony, many of Marvel’s iconic characters have graced the big-screen to solid success, from Iron Man to Spider-Man to the X-Men to even lesser-known characters like the Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man. But not every superhero has had a successful run on the big screen and probably the most infamous example of this has been the Fantastic Four. Despite being arguably one of the most famous superhero groups in not just the Marvel Universe but of all-time, their track record on film has been fairly mediocre at best, especially when compared with their fellow Marvel heroes like Spider-Man or the Avengers. The upcoming ‘Fantastic Four’ film, directed by Josh Trank, will be the third major attempt at bringing Marvel’s ‘First Family’ to the big-screen after two previous attempts in the past failed to attract much success. One film in particular didn’t even make it to theaters and the two that did are generally considered to be some of the weakest superhero films of their era. And today we’ll be looking at all three of those films. Yes I will be looking at not only the 2005 ‘Fantastic Four’ and its 2007 sequel but also the 1994 low-budget version that was ultimately never released in theaters. Here’s hoping that the new ‘Fantastic Four’ film will finally break this curse of this unlucky superhero film franchise.

THE FANTASTIC FOUR (1994)

Before the two ‘Fantastic Four’ films that we are all familiar with ever came out, and before Marvel was even the film powerhouse that it is today, there was actually a different ‘Fantastic Four’ film that even predates the 2005 film. This particular film was produced in 1994 by B-movie king Roger Corman and directed by music video director Oley Sassone. Never heard of it? Well, there’s actually a rather legitimate reason for this. For you see, this film never got a theatrical release, despite it being promoted in theaters at the time and the announcement of a planned world premiere at the Mall of America on January 19, 1994. Apparently the reasoning behind this move was that the film was never actually intended to be shown in theaters and was just produced so that producer Bernd Eichinger (who would go on to produce the following two officially released ‘Fantastic Four’ films) could retain the rights to the characters, though Eichinger himself denied these claims and instead claimed that Marvel stepped in because they didn’t want the film to ‘ruin the franchise’. Regardless of which story is true, most of the cast and crew were left completely unaware of this and in that regard, I do feel bad for them in this situation, having to ‘learn the hard way’ that the film they had all worked so hard on would never get to see the light of day. Unlike the 1990 ‘Captain America’ film, which was also never released in theaters but was released on home video, this film has never seen an official release outside of bootleg recordings on the internet.

To the credit of the cast and crew, if anything it looks like they at least tried their best with the limited resources that they had. This film only had a budget of around $2 million, and just about half of that budget went solely into developing the costuming for ‘The Thing’. But with that said, yes you could definitely tell that this is a very low-budget flick as far as superhero films are concerned based on certain elements of the production design and the visuals, or lack thereof in some cases. There’s seriously a ‘fight scene’ (and I use that term loosely) between the Thing and some of Dr. Doom’s henchmen which just consists of the camera rapidly spinning around to ‘simulate’ the action before cutting to the ‘aftermath’. And I’m pretty sure that the one major action sequence in which Johnny Storm is in full Human Torch mode recycles the exact same visual cues of an old ‘Superman’ cartoon from the 1940’s. Also there apparently wasn’t any major ADR work done for Dr. Doom because whenever he talks, he’s more unintelligible than Bane from ‘The Dark Knight Rises’. And finally, speaking of this iteration of Dr. Doom, he is easily the weakest villain in superhero film history as he lacks any sort of intimidation factor and repeatedly gets his plans foiled and his butt kicked by the Fantastic Four. Sure he may have a solid connection to the Fantastic Four being Reed Richards’ old friend from college, Victor Von Doom, but that doesn’t change the fact that he is just a wuss of a villain. Seriously, even Malekith from ‘Thor 2’ wasn’t as bad as him.

Ultimately, this ‘Fantastic Four’ is very cheesy and even a bit overly melodramatic at times, which partially stems from the film’s rather over-bearing score. But despite all of that, for some strange reason, I actually recommend you checking this film out at least once in your life (heck, I’ll even provide a link to it below). Let me be clear, it is by no means ‘good’ but similar to the legendary stinker ‘Batman and Robin’, it actually turns out to be one of those ‘so bad it’s hilarious’ films, namely due to the aforementioned ‘oddities’ that I mentioned earlier. And for what it’s worth, the four main leads in the film who play the Fantastic Four (technically 5 if you count the fact that Thing is played by two different actors); Alex Hyde-White, Rebecca Staab, Jay Underwood, and Michael Bailey Smith (Carl Ciarfalio plays ‘the Thing’) are fine enough in their respective roles. But ultimately I’d only recommend this film if you’re really interested in checking out an odd little part of cinematic superhero history; a low-budget superhero film that never got released to theaters and can only be viewed through bootleg-quality copies on the internet. Seriously, they released that godawful ‘Captain America’ film from the 90’s on Blu-Ray recently (I’ll get to that one someday) so why hasn’t this ‘Fantastic Four’ film gotten the same treatment? I’m serious, I think the time has come to give this film a proper home video release instead of just having it be viewable only on the internet and in rather piss-poor quality. In fact, dare I say that there is more heart to this ‘Fantastic Four’ film than the films that actually got released in theaters? That folks… is saying something.

Rating: 1.5/5

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHlBsLQ4BQs)

FANTASTIC FOUR (2005)

One whole decade after the 1994 ‘Fantastic Four’ film incident, producer Bernd Eichinger finally brought Marvel’s First Family to the big screen with 2005’s ‘Fantastic Four’, directed by Tim Story. The film was a solid hit at the box office, ultimately making about 3.3 times its original budget. However, the film itself fared poorly with critics and most audiences. As for me, I’ll admit that I don’t necessarily ‘hate’ this film compared to many others on the internet and while I hate using this term, I guess you can say this is sort of a ‘guilty pleasure’ for me. Still, this is definitely one of the weaker superhero films of the early 2000’s. It sort of shares a major similarity with the 2003 ‘Daredevil’ film in that it very much feels like a Hollywoodized superhero film in terms of execution, which seems to have been the major pattern for most of Fox’s Marvel flicks up until the X-Men series got itself back on track in 2011 with ‘X-Men: First Class’. In fact, for a superhero film, ‘Fantastic Four’ is actually rather light on superhero action. There are only about two to three major action sequences in the entire film and most of the run-time is instead focusing on scenes of the main characters talking and placing a lot of emphasis on humor that quite frankly comes off as being way too goofy. To anyone who complains about the Marvel Cinematic Universe films being way too focused on humor, trust me when I say that at least they’ve never gone ‘this far’.         

As far as casting is concerned, the film is about 50-50 in terms of its casting choices. The two biggest standouts are Chris Evans, before he took on another famous Marvel hero, Captain America, in, to be perfectly blunt, much better films, as the Human Torch and Michael Chiklis as Thing (also props to the filmmakers for sticking with practical make-up effects in order to bring Thing to life). Both do solid jobs in capturing their characters’ personalities and despite what I said earlier about the film’s over-reliance on humor, the back-and-forth camaraderie between them is actually one of the better aspects of the film. Heck, I’d also argue that Ioan Gruffudd was actually a solid choice for Mr. Fantastic even though he really could’ve benefitted more from a better script. But as for Jessica Alba as the Invisible Woman, this is definitely one of the biggest miscastings in superhero film history. In fact, this feels much more like stunt-casting given how much emphasis is placed on her sex appeal instead of any of the things that made the Invisible Woman such a great character in the comics. Julian McMahon is also majorly miscast as Dr. Doom. I may not have read much of the ‘Fantastic Four’ comics, but I definitely tell that the Doom of this film series shares little similarities with the Doom from the comics. All in all, though, I’ll admit that I still find this film to be fairly entertaining in parts and I don’t think that it’s the absolute worst superhero film of the era. But with that said, this is also by no means one of the genre’s best. Compared to other superhero films of the time like the first two ‘Spider-Man’ and ‘X-Men’ films, this is a much more ‘by-the-numbers’ superhero flick which definitely must have been majorly disappointing for fans of the franchise.

Rating: 3/5

FANTASTIC FOUR: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER (2007)

So while the first ‘Fantastic Four’ film didn’t do so great with critics, it was successful enough to warrant a sequel in 2007 in ‘Rise of the Silver Surfer’. As the title suggests, this film, which surprisingly managed to warrant a PG rating after the first film was rated PG-13, introduces the iconic ‘Silver Surfer’, the herald of Galactus, the Devourer of Worlds. But like the previous film, this film also fared poorly with critics… but also like the previous film, I don’t think that this film is all that bad. In fact, I’d say it’s actually one of those rare sequels that actually manages to be better than the original, even if that’s not really saying much in the case of this franchise. It still carries quite a few of the same issues from the previous film, specifically the overly goofy attempts at humor and the hit or miss quality of the cast. Thankfully, though, this film does up the amount of action which was rather lacking in the first film. Because of that, this film also doesn’t drag as much at times like its predecessor did. And at the end of the day, the Silver Surfer (portrayed by Doug Jones but voiced by Laurence Fishburne) is definitely a major standout. But ultimately this film’s biggest downfall is how it portrays the character of Galactus. Instead of portraying him as the gigantic purple suit-wearing god-like character that comic book fans are all familiar with, he is instead turned into a giant cloud-like entity with a few fleeting visuals that resemble his look from the comics.

Now I’m not one to do many film comparisons but in the case of how Galactus is portrayed in this film, I feel that I must by comparing this infamous change to another infamous comic book film change; the ‘Mandarin’ fake-out from ‘Iron Man 3’. Obviously I’ve made it very clear in the past that I will always defend the ‘Mandarin’ twist because while it does go against how the character was portrayed in the comics, it actually worked well within the context of that film’s story. But the same cannot be said for Galactus in this film. There’s absolutely no reason story-wise for Galactus to look the way that he does in the film. Really, the only major reason I can figure as to why Galactus is portrayed like this is because the filmmakers couldn’t really come up with a way of having him look like he does in the comics without it being too silly. Though at the end of the day, I can’t really blame them that much for this because quite frankly even I can’t see how one can do this character justice on the big-screen without making some changes to his character design. So like with the first ‘Fantastic Four’, I’ll admit that I actually do like ‘Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer’. Again it is by no means the ‘best’ superhero film ever made. It makes one of the worst ‘character changes’ in superhero film history and it still carries some of its predecessor’s glaring issues. But at the same time I don’t think that it is ‘terrible’ and if I had to choose between this and the first film, ultimately I prefer this film as it does benefit from better pacing and more action.

Rating: 3.5/5