The monsters of Peter Jackson’s King Kong • Journal • A Magazine • , Life in canada

As Wesley observes, “The heart of this Kong is Jackson’s love for cinema. The director treats us to a full hour of Old Hollywood moviemaking before we get to Skull Island.” Jackson’s love for the original, and filmmaking in general, manifests in many ways in King Kong, not least in how he depicts Denham as an Orson Welles-esque zealot. (Welles showed up as a character during fantasy sequences in Heavenly Creatures.) At one point, Black’s Denham even references the (actual) original production, lamenting the unavailability of “Fay” (Wray, star of the original) because she’s working on an RKO production with “Cooper”.

The (now arguably standard) three-hour running time was cited as a negative by many upon release, but I love how the film marinates. It takes its time building up to the big reveals, which are only more impactful as a result. This isn’t Jackson being indulgent, this is Jackson cooking: the director, alongside Walsh and Boyens, fills their story with character arcs that the original had no time for, and brings a lyrical quality to the relationship between Ann and Kong, played by Andy Serkis via motion-capture technology.

As they had done with Gollum previously, Jackson, Serkis and visual effects studio Wētā FX set a new standard for infusing a fantastical creature with actual character in King Kong. There is genuine tragedy felt in the ultimate fate of Kong, and the sequence where he slips and slides on ice in New York with Ann is quite possibly the most touching scene ever filmed that features a giant gorilla—Gcotton writes, “You really feel that close connection made between them, which makes the entire climax more tragic in nature.”

The design and execution of Kong is undoubtedly impressive, but it has been extolled many times elsewhere. My principal motivation with this story is to dive into an aspect of Jackson’s Kong that has been somewhat under-acknowledged: all the other amazing monsters in the film.