King Kong (1933) The one and only, brought to life by Hollywood's first official special effects wizard Willis O'Brien. Kong was every little boy's dream come true.....a stuffed toy with attitude, built to smash, rage.....and like every little boy, sooner or later, succumb to puppy love. The flaws in O'Brien's singular creation became part of Kong's immortal charm.....his size in relation to his surroundings changes radically.....but isn't that true of all of us when we're thrust into strange new situations? Kong's fur ripples like an oceanic tide....due to the imprints of O'Brien's fingers as he manipulated the Kong puppet to photograph it one frame at time. But in the context of the film, it seems like a perfect effect......even Kong's fur is pissed off......5 stars (*****)
Son Of Kong (1933) A quickie trifle, made to cash in....but remarkably, Kong's little boy is more like a little girl's stuffed toy.....cuddly and ultimately self-sacrificing. He's a Furby who dies for your sins....3 stars (***)
King Kong Vs. Godzilla (1962) Poor Kong, abducted and Ape-Trafficked to Japan.....where he's a forced participant in Tokyo Monster Fight Club.....only instead of Brad Pitt, he's compelled to duke it out a hot-tempered ham with radioactive breath. No, not Nicolas Cage....but Big G himself. They go at it with true WWF enthusiasm....the only thing they miss hitting themselves with are metal folding chairs. Kong is indifferently played by some sumo wrestler wearing a suit borrowed from a 'Little Rascals Meet A Gorilla' short. Nice animated octopus, though.....2 stars (**)
King Kong Escapes (1968) Still imprisoned in Japan and victimized by the evil machinations of two villains named.....wait for it, we're not kidding....Dr. Who and Madame Piranha (played by Bond girl Mie Hama).Even worse.....KK has to rumble with a robot version of himself, who looks like an accurate junior high metal shop reproduction of the silly Japanese Kong costume....2 stars (**)
King Kong (1976) Out of frying pan.....Kong signs up with the Euro-Trash P.T. Barnum, Dino Di Laurentis. No animation or furry suits for Dino.....he promises the world a full scale mechanical Kong. Reality bites Dino hard.....his giant Kong-bot moves like an arthritic tree sloth. So Kong is played by makeup maestro Rick Baker who leap frogs around the World Trade Center towers. The snarky script, stuffed with gags, references and phrases that forever doom it to its time period, earns the movie its well deserved revulsion. Dino claims....'evvabody gonna cry when Monkey die...' Not a wet eye in the house..... 1 star (*)
King Kong (2005) Director Peter Jackson aims for "Lord of The Kongs"....and his elaborate remake feels like it runs longer than all three of his 'Rings' movies. With a few flourishes of his own, he aims for a straight up remake of the 1933 original, returning Kong to Depression-era New York. Kong's now a state of the art CGI guy, a zillion pixels layered over Andy Serkis. And thanks to computers, he stays the same size throughout. Jackson, however, stumbles constantly, miscasting Jack Black as the bullshit artist impresario Carl Denham....(it plays like an old Jerry Lewis movie, the ones where Jerry crashes a movie set and gets mistaken for the leading man...) Hoping to heal Kong-ites who mourn the loss of the original film's legendarily deleted giant bug sequence, Jackson swamps the screen with his own interminable big bug attack. Overall, a reverent and loving tribute to Willis O' Brien's stop-motion puppet....but it just wears you out. 2 & 1/2 stars (** 1/2)
And now Kong, just like Joan Crawford after her firing from MGM, has signed up with Warner Brothers......lucky for him Bette Davis isn't around anymore to go mano-a-mano with him......the Warners fight card has him stepping into the ring with.....ah, we've come full circle....Godzilla. Now you know why Cole Porter wrote "Everything Old Is New Again".......
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