Original motion picture? What! The 33 King Kong is just chopped liver?
It's time to put on our adventure shoes, steal a boat and get into petty arguments with the crew.
That's right it's time to look at another King Kong movie.
This one has the awkward position of being in between the two other major King Kong flicks thus making it the second of the series even though it's on my third and fourth counting other King Kong movies.
Story of this King Kong isn't all that different from any of the others. What sets it apart from its predecessor is which character is doing what.
Jeff Bridges plays this zoologist photographer guy who wants to get onto the island so that he can witness the mass of King Kong. While the ship in the rest of the crew are only heading onto the island with the possibility of discovering oil. They have no recollection or even care of Kong.
That is until they discovered that the oil present on the island is 10,000 years too early. And wouldn't be any good for motorised vehicles.
It's this little setback that turns our oil tycoon into a regular Carl Denim.
It feels really out of place especially once everybody gets back to New York.
Now the guy's a show runner and he's got this big production all set up ready to go with the manly Beast himself. When before he couldn't give a rat's ass about promotional or anything else to do with the entertainment industry.
The closest thing we got was his semi pique interest in this woman that was rescued off of a raft somewhere in the middle of the ocean because the cruise line she was on was destroyed by mysterious circumstances.
She can no longer go on to become a ''famous'' Hollywood star off in Singapore.
It's kind of implied that she might have been starring in a porno or something else of that ilk.
Especially given her weird references to the movie 'Deep Throat' and that she was the only Survivor given that she didn't bother watching the movie.
And of course you'll end up becoming the sacrificial lamb for the natives on the island of Kong. Because somebody has to be sacrificed to the giant monkey god.
This is also the only King Kong movie I can think of where the white woman being prefer to the black woman is kind of emphasised. In that all the black women who were going to be sacrificed to Kong had to wear this ridiculous straw covered hair that gave them the illusion of being blond.
I guess if anything it gives them (the natives) a reason as to why they really want the blond girl as opposed to any of their locals (who would be easier to sacrifice). I think I'm putting too much thought into the whole sacrificial part of the movie. It's just a set-piece so we can get the girl to Kong after all.
There's this one scene where Jeff Bridges character is shirtless. Because you've given this talk to the girl who was kidnapped the King Kong. And in this one particular frame because Jeff Bridges is unshaved it kind of looks like a Tarzan parody. I don't know if that was intentional but it got me thinking about the prospects of a King Kong meets Tarzan movie. Think of the possibilities.
Unfortunately for me; King Kong 76 feels an awful lot like Skull Island. In that I really liked the first half but then everything started to kind of fall apart in the second act.
Now unlike Skull Island I still maintain relative enjoyment for this film and found that it stayed true to the King Kong formula.
But there's just not as much Whimsy to this world. King Kong's Little Island only has one other supernatural being and there's no dinosaurs.
It's a much more simple and straightforward island adventure. I guess it's supposed to be pierced in the world of reality.
That wouldn't bother me so much but the way everybody acts in the last 20 minutes of the film is kind of ridiculous.
Jeff Bridges character along with Jessica Lange character start feeling an immense amount of guilt for King Kong being straddled up in a big stage performance.
Now that's acceptable enough in its own right but the way they interact afterwards when he's running in New York and killing load the people is ridiculous.
They're actually shocked and bewildered that the military would have the audacity to open fire on a giant monkey man who is clearly slaughtered several innocent people.
They also openly rooted for King Kong killing a bunch of soldiers On Top of the World Trade Centre. I guess you guys don't really like them but you're still rooting for the death of you fellow citizens only acting in defence of a humongous ape who they've never encountered before.
I'm not sure how this they pulled it off, but the film was somehow was able to get to Kong Island quicker than both the original film or the 2005 one.
And yet somehow still had me begging for more of a Kong Island Experience. I'm not sure exactly what it is I wanted ether.
I could say that I'd want King Kong fighting a dinosaur or something equally ludicrous**. But really you can't expect to see that in every single King Kong movie and a lot of the times it will just drag the story on with no real consequence.
At the end of the day the best part of Kong Island was shown quite a bit in this movie.
The great native settlement with its massive walls surrounding the whole village is one of the Prime locations in the first two-thirds of the entire flick.
We get to see tons of the natives Costumes & dance routines and a couple of amusing scenes of them trying to barter their women for the cruise one woman.
But unlike all the other King Kong movies, none of the natives pointlessly die in this one.
Although Jeff Bridges does stay that they'll probably all be alcoholics in a few years given that this crew of weirdos from New York literally kidnapped there living God.
Despite all my negativity I've written about above I feel that King Kong 1976 is a good movie. It does its best to capture its own unique flavor of the King Kong story without just eating off what made the original unique.
Really it has a lot going for it too. There's some wonderful set design and prop work involved in this movie. The acting is fairly good and the overall camera work is solid.
Its biggest disadvantage is that it's the worst aged of the King Kong flicks*.
The original movie used matt paintings and claymation for most of its special effects. While the 1970s version relies heavily on green screen and some prop designs that feel as if they belong to decades 20 years past.
That wouldn't be a problem in itself if it wasn't sitting next to very well filmed choreographed scenes. So going from one set of a real-life island with people walking on it too staged background sets that looks like it's out of the back of the studio is a bit jarring. I kind of wish they had picked one technique over the other.
Conclusion: A really good monster flick an okay King Kong movie and an overall enjoyable experience.
It's only crime is that it can't be as good as the original and it's not quite as interesting as Peter Jackson's 05 remake. Still leads better than what I expected of a modern interpretation of King Kong.
*The simply named King Kong movies. Not counting any of its spin-off films like Son of Kong or Kong Lives.
**Technically King Kong did fight a giant snake. So I guess I did get my wish of a giant ridiculous fight after all.
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