Kong/ Syriana

Had another "let's go to the movies" type of day. Watched two of three movies I've been meaning to watch for some time. Actually, the only reason I missed the Chronicles of Narnia was that those with me did not have the head, gusto, or patience for a third movie in the same day. Ah well, there's always next weekend...

This then is my review of the two I did see... Lucky me - contrary to the law of averages, I liked both...! So brace yourself - this will be a long two-posts-in-one affair...

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King Kong

In one of the biggest set pieces of the movie's second act, after having sent two T-rexes to their doom, here's how Kong handles the third; He bites off its tongue and spits it out contemptuously, to send it flying. Then he grabs the awesome jaws and tears them apart. After the Rex dies, he proceeds to toy with the torn jaws, opening and closing them with one hand, as though egging the dino corpse to try and bite him now! He then beats on his battle scarred chest and roars triumphant, defiant - right before he does a slow sulk for the benefit of a lady that ran from him. Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Peter Jackson's vision of the 8th wonder of the world!

To tell you the truth, I'd never really got it. I couldn't see what the hype was all about. I could not understand why Jackson would choose to remake a 1933 stop-action movie (which had been remade once before, and badly) right after his magnum opus, The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I had no fond memories of watching Kong when I was four or some such; in my book, Kong and Godzilla have always been representative of B-grade movies, and having seen how Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin stumbled on the lizard post-ID4, I did not see why PJ's tale would warrant a lovingly made 3 hours+ of screen time.

Until now, that is.

To put it mildly, Jackson's King Kong blew me away! I'm really not going to gush about the graphics or the camerawork or all that tech stuff - I didn't think it was possible to beat the work done in LoTR, but Jackson and WETA have certainly outdone themselves here. Instead, I'm going to talk about the story, and the characters.

Ann Darrow, Carl Denham and of course, King Kong himself (played by Naomi Watts, Jack Black and Andy "Gollum" Serkis) are spot-on touching characters! Ann captures not only the classic fragile damsel in distress, but also the quintessential depression era New Yorker. Too proud to appear in a burlesque cabaret, too hungry to not steal an apple on the streets. Carl, the roguish movie maker who never stops using everything and everyone around him to fuel his all consuming passion for his work - and yet the only one who really understands Kong in the end. These two, and the playwright Jack Driscoll (played by the amazing Adrien "The Pianist" Brody) set up a troika of characters that really resonates on screen.

But it is Kong himself who steals the show. Here is a creature, the last of his kind, living in the most inhospitable, brutal place imaginable - and surviving. He is dirty, with matted fur and scars all over. He is a god to the indigenous tribes who regularly offer him human sacrifice. Still, you think its cute when he falls for Ann Darrow, the way a child would fall for a favorite doll (thankfully, there are no sexual overtones here, the way there were in the Jessica Lange version of Kong). You think he's an uncontrollable monster when he's essentially chomping and tearing anything that stands between him and her. You hate him, fear him, and can't help but root for him!

Why? Perhaps because just like Gollum (PJ's other all digital character masterpiece from LoTR) he is an epitome of loneliness, of having to take care of oneself and not having anyone who cares about you or anyone to care for. Of being the object of fear and hatred to everyone around you - all but one. Gollum had the moments when Frodo pitied him, and took him under his wing; Kong had Ann Darrow's empathy.

Then again, this is a character that evokes more mixed feelings than Gollum (not a small feat) - the reason is a basic difference between the two. You NEVER feel pity for Kong as you do for Gollum - not even in the final scene atop the Empire State building when the light in his eyes goes out and he plummets to the ground. He is simply too strong for that.

Above all else, the movie seems to send out one simple message - life's unfair, and the strong may survive, but this much is certain - even the mightiest shall one day fall. The inevitable brutality of the movie's end is perhaps highlighted by the tender emotions on display right through it, and although you knew going in how it would play out, it still manages to sadden you. (Almost all the kids in the theatre were bawling when the lights came on!)

I'm not saying the film is perfect - Some will say it is too long (I don't). Some will say it's candy floss movie-making at its best/ worst (I laugh in their faces). Some would think Jack Black gets Denham wrong (Aw come on! His performance, his delivery of the last line "T'was the beauty that killed the beast" is spot-on perfect!) And some would say the movie feels like Jackson simply let loose and indulged himself in a no-holds-barred fashion. And here I would agree - you can feel the glee of the director's inner child in every monstrous spider, every terrifying T-Rex and every spooky aborigine. But please, explain to me why that is a bad thing? Isn't that in fact what movie-making is all about?

So all right, Mr Jackson. You got me once again! You got me the way Star Wars, or your own LoTR, or Spiderman 2 or Batman Begins got me... you made of me a kid once more. (Readers, shut up with the cliched "as if that's hard" jokes)

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Syriana

I could not have picked a more different movie to watch after I watched Kong. We're talking apples and pineapples here! From writer/ director Stephen Gaghan (the guy who scripted Traffic) this hard-hitting movie feels more like a documentary than a movie. But surprise of surprises - for me, perhaps because I saw them together in the space of 7 hours, this movie and Kong carried the same message; Life's unfair, deal with it!

This is an exploration of how corporate interests in the US affect geopolitics and economics in the Middle East and the half-descriptive, half-cautionary tale unfolds in a somewhat helter skelter fashion through the eyes of several characters.

A jaded CIA operative who has "spent a career being used, without knowing what he was used for" (played superbly by George Clooney), an energy derivatives analyst who loses a son in a freak accident, and uses that fact to gain favor, influence and a shot at power (Matt Damon at his usual levels of competence), an up and coming lawyer who ends up being a "corruption facilitator", the two sons of an Emir - one who wants real development and reform, the other a dilettante backed by US interests, a Pakistani youth whose career starts as a laborer in Iranian oil fields and ends as a suicide bomber striking an oil tanker, and a sundry team of politicos, spies and terrorists who all seem to be in it for the oil. AKA money. AKA power.

It's a difficult movie to follow, and one that will never be mainstream popular (unless it wins an Academy award). But it is a stirring portrayal of how the global oil cartel seems to work that leaves you a little depressed and certainly aghast. It is about the shameless exploitation of the resources and the people in the Middle East which has perhaps ensured that the region will never be truly stable; that it will always exist in a sort of high trouble-potential equilibrium - until the oil runs out. And then, naturally, no one will give a damn if the bedouin live or die. (Then again, while we are being honest the question arises - isn't the whole world in that same kind of equilibrium anyway? Look at India/ Pakistan or Israel or North Korea or Taiwan for instance!)

Oh and a necessary post-script - this is by far George Clooney's finest performance to date. (Or so I think, since in my book it doesn't take much to be a cool as ice cubes Danny Ocean or a fluttery eyelids, Peter Pan complexed Jack Taylor in One Fine Day.)

He steals an almost unstealable movie with his portrayal of the CIA agent who is being made a scapegoat in spite of (or perhaps because of) his zeal and his competence. The highlight of his work here is a scene where his character is being tortured by a mercenary. Those five minutes (in the course of which his nails get pulled out by a decidedly evil looking rot iron pincer) are an amazing display of somehow fragile, somehow unassailable determination in the face of raw physical fear. Kudos!

In a nutshell - go see this one.