Rating: 
Summary: Pales beside the '33 original
Review: Like most remakes, the film exhibits good intentions and even starts off well. However, its fundamental production quality and even its special effects (!) are dwarfed by those of the 1933 original. The acting in the 1933 film is also much more convincing, in my opinion. I formerly owned the LaserDisc issue of the 1933 King Kong, and that edition was terrific, featuring the movie in its _unedited_ version as well as a director's commentary pertaining to the detailed aspects of the making of this great film.I suggest that you _skip_ this mediocre remake and save your hard-earned bucks to purchase the upcoming DVD version of the original King Kong. If it is anything like the LaserDisc version (it actually should be more, regarding "extras"), you won't go wrong!
Rating: 
Summary: Great camp trash from the '70's
Review: As many film fans are painfully aware, the sight of producer Dino De Laurentiis' name in the credits of any project virtually guarantees the stamp of mediocrity, and this 1976 version of "King Kong", less a faithful remake than a "re-imagining", doesn't escape that fate. With its leaden tone, wooden acting and creaky special effects (even by Seventies standards), it works best as unintentional high camp, and as such, has long since been relegated to the "so bad it's good" category. Properly viewed in that spirit, though, it is undeniably entertaining, and does offer at least two redeeming qualities: a superlative (and often overlooked) musical score by longtime James Bond composer John Barry, and the staging of the finale, which occurs not atop the Empire State Building but on the World Trade Center towers, one of the few films (along with John Carpenter's 1981 hit "Escape From New York") in which the late buildings actually played a key role rather than as background scenery. Though at the time the filmmakers obviously could not have forseen the two buildings' gruesome demise, it nonetheless makes for a strangely compelling, if extremely eerie, experience watching the movie today, as several scenes were shot inside the actual towers themselves. That being said, however, the other aspects of the film are undeniably awful, and some that have posted reviews here have wondered how such talents as Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange could possibly been involved, obviously unaware that this was Oscar-winner Lange's very first film role, and that Bridges (who in my opinion has long been overdue for an Oscar) was at this point in his career still very much a B-list, journeyman actor. Considering the script he had to work with, he turns in a solid performance, and unlike other members of the cast, at least doesn't manage to embarrass himself (though I'm sure he's happy few people today probably recognize him under the wild unkempt hair and beard he sported at the time). Of course, no discussion of up-and-coming talent in this film would be complete without mentioning the contributions of makeup artist Rick Baker, who would go on to become one of Hollywood's top designers of special makeup effects, winning several deserved Academy Awards for such films as "An American Werewolf in London", "Gorillas in the Mist", and "Ed Wood", among many others. Here Baker both created and wore the Kong "gorilla suit", to good effect, after plans to create a full-size, working mechanical Kong proved unattainable. (The full-size Kong does appear in two brief scenes: one late in the film and of course at the very end, looking equally dead in both.) As high camp goes, though, scenes like this (as well as the scene with the giant snake) are hard to beat, and overall the film is, for me, still a lot of good, cheesy fun. Paramount's DVD release at least allows the film to finally be seen in its original widescreen format, and includes the amusing trailer. Here's looking forward to "Lord of the Rings" maestro Peter Jackson's true-to-the-source remake of the 1933 original, set to wow us all in 2005!
Rating: 
Summary: Much Better Than These People Would Have You Believe
Review: Was it unnecessary? Yeah, probably, Mr. "Top 10" Bernabo. Does it surpass or match the original "Kong"'s quality? No, I wouldn't say that. But I can certainly say that (to anyone reading this) YOU could not have done a better job than DeLaurentiis or Guillermin at this valiant attempt.
I was ready for this "70's chic" approach to probably the best monster movie ever made to completely warp or taint everything I had loved and adored from the original story. But what a lot of the people who condemn or ignore 76's "Kong" are forgetting to tell you is that it is surprisingly faithful to the source material. So much so, that film geek extraordinaire Peter Jackson (responsible for the end-of-the-year second "King Kong" remake) himself has professed his appreciation for the endeavor. And I could very easily see what draws him in, as I watched this for my first time last weekend.
"Kong" (monster movie, or not) is a love story. "Lo, the beast had stayed his hand..." We all know the quote. To get an early incarnation of a Claymation model to evoke sympathy for the character as well as 1933's Kong did, was almost a fluke of creative inspiration. Rick Baker (winner of umpteen Best Makeup Oscars) stepped inside the full body gorilla suit with zest and zeal in 1976 (behind an emotive face from "Alien" and "E.T." creator Carlo Ramboldi). He doesn't really move like an ape, technically quadripedal, or so, but I thought he brought a great performance up against Jessica Lange's fresh-to-film face. He gives the entire performance through his eyes. The moments before his New York rampage, trapped in the cargo holding cell of the great ship, are honestly somber and solemn. Check the look of defeat just before Dwan's (lame name, I will admit, though it's probably some phonetic reworking of Ann Darrow from '33) kerchief floats down upon his chest.
The attitude, the grand scale, and the sense of fantastical wonderment, IMHO, are kept admirably. The film might run a little longer than it should, a fair number of shortcuts are taken, Charles Grodin goes unfunnily over-the-top, however I thought Jeff Bridges kicked ass as a legend-hunting scientist (his are some of the worst lines in the film, but he delivers them so that he doesn't sound like a jackass) and Jessica Lange is just sexy as all Hell. The full scale animatronic Kong (visible in only like 3 shots) is hideously rendered and looks more akin to a welcoming FAO Schwartz display. This is a remake somewhat high on camp. But not so much that it detracts.
I thought there was some OCCASIONAL clever manipulations in the screenwriting between the two "Kong"s. In 1933 a showman went to the island to film a movie with footage of Kong in it; in '76 an oil drilling expedition charts the island but finds the "oil" worthless, so they bring "Kong" back instead not wanting to return empty-handed. I mean, Kong is the natives' Lord Deity, so that's '70s iconoclasm for ya. (A direct slap in the face to the old evolution v. creationism debate: your god is a monkey.) And they repeat some of the most famous destructive scenes from the original, as well as adding an elevated train for Kong to bend up and toss, and switching the climax to the (then brand-new) World Trade Towers.
The differing climactic locations are appropriate for one main reason. 1933's Kong, brought to the mainland he was never suppose to know about, rampaged over horrified and warmongering humans in an attempt just to be alone with his woman. Don't laugh, I'm being serious. They wouldn't let him alone, so he ended up doing what all apes do to avoid humans: he climbed. He climbed the tallest thing he could see: the Empire State Building (a symbol of the height of human workmanship and capitalist monument in 1933.) Kong '76 doesn't even get put on display before he goes... apesh-t, he mangles the city like he ought to, again because of those pesky humans, but he finds his woman when they open fire on him. So he takes his woman and he climbs. He climbs the tallest tree he can see in this concrete jungle to keep her safe from all those bullets. *An even more sterling example of Western empirical colonialism and capitalist idolatry*, he scales the World Trade Towers effortlessly, yet they fail to ward off helicopters. And they machine-gun the everloving sh-t out of him. It's a destructive, gory, and ultimately sad death for this unique monster in both films. But it's different when you see him shredded with bullets in color as opposed to black-and-white. Really drives home the violence more forcefully: that humans have weaponry and misguided hate powerful enough to topple a God from the sky.
Please don't let the sour reviews from both film geeks and film critics (one and the same) sully your potentially underdeveloped opinion of this film. If you have a genuine appreciation for the mysticism and child-like glee that the original "Kong" harbors, don't be surprised if you like at least a good chunk of this remake. It's there for you to find.
One thing is absolute: I cannot wait to see what Jackson is gonna do to this enterprise.
Rating:
Summary: KINGKONG 1976
Review: After viewing the orginal and the remake for the first time since I was a child (watching the late late movie) I found the remake to be relevant. YES, the monster and the special effects (especially the human death scenes) were much much more scary (and realistic) in the orginal. Yes, I miss the dinasours, snd yes, the movie does drag a bit before we get to the action. However the politico-socio 70's slant of the remake was zietgeist funny and very empathetic. With the remake, one could identify with Kong and when he dies, there is sadness (and for some viewers even tears) that make the monster more human than the original version.
The horrific spectacule of media explotation was much more evident in this version and heighten the poignancy. By the end one can find oneself secretly cheering Kong on when he smashes the planes that bring about his demise.
Alright, the bad sloppy cut from Lange watching Kong fall from the twin towers, to her immediately being on the ground watching him die and surrounded by paparazzi was blantant impossiblity. And wasn't it strange how much bigger Kong was in the movie posters? With one foot on each Tower? Didn't hehave to jump in the movie?
But I find in my childhood memories, the perfect King Kong movie being an amalgamation of the two films. One in which the lighting and direction are perfection and one in which the script and the performances of the hero and heroine manage to bring us a greater sensibility and empathy for what can be called a "monster."
Buy both. They are both classics. And it may be your last chance to own a film that depicts the Twin Towers in all their glory.
Rating:
Summary: A Great, Misunderstood Pop Classic
Review: Firstly, I'd like to dispel a misconception that many "reviewers" here onsite are promoting: that the 1976 verison of "King Kong" was a notorious financial flop. This is simply not the case.
King Kong (1976)was a huge hit back in the seventies--I know because I was there, I saw the frenzy, I remember the crowded theaters. It cost $24 million and made $60 in 1977 dollars, only a little less than the highly regarded blockbuster "Jaws" made a couple of years earlier. Calling the film a commercial "flop" is not just inaccurate--it is a statement that borders on stupid.
Now, admittedly, it also had a huge pr campaign, which undoubtedly helped it garner a lot of that dough, but there was a lot more to the flick than just the hype.
While the commercial success of the film is a matter of indisputible record, its artistic success is a matter of personal opinion. I happen to think this is one of the best pop films of the Seventies--and there are a lot more folks out there who agree with me than you think.
Many people rag on the film for not being reverential to the original, ignoring that fact that "being reverential" was the antitheseis of what the 70s were about. Kong 76 could have probably been an even bigger hit than it was if the filmmakers had played it safe and hadn't gone out of their way to make a film so stubbornly odd. I mean this thing stomps over a gigantic swath of styles: panoramic spectacle, high adventure, pathos, romance, social commentary, absurdist comedy, thrills, and occasionally outright goofiness--all comprised in a slyly satiric package designed to tweak the noses of Kong purists. Lorenzo Semple Jr.'s ("Papillon ") screenplay is all over the place when it comes to style and tone, borrowing from whatever and whenever, almost as though it had been patched together from several different treatments--yet it still remains incredibly tight in terms of interesting, well-drawn, consistent characters, witty dialog, exploration of theme, and the forward momentum of the plot. King Kong 76 is a great example of anarchic postmodernism being perfectly wed to the staunch formalism of good storytelling. A contemporary example of this approach would be Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill films.
The direction by veteran John Guillermin was absolutely fearless, pushing each of Semple's concepts to its limit, even at the risk of seeming silly. And he had a great cast to work with, especially young Jessica Lange in her first film role. Unfortunately, Jessica played the role of the vivacious, childlike, kinda dimwitted bubblehead blonde Dwan so incredibly well that most people wrote her off, assuming she was just a dumb blonde playing herself. But in actuality it is a bravura performance, one of the best in her career, and certainly a more individual, more fully-realized character performance than we get in most movies these days.
As big a hit as the disco era Kong was, however, there were a lot of people who were put off because they weren't expecting anything as freewheeling and insane as what they were given. They weren't expecting weirdness and satire. They weren't expecting to see Kong blowing a hot, wet blonde dry after a dip in a lake (metaphors anyone?), a scene simultaneously erotic and ridiculous. They weren't expecting to see the captured Kong turned in to a corporate shill--is there any scene in mainstream 70s cinema more surrealistically satiric than that of Kong being presented to the masses encased in a thirty story replica of a gasoline pump? They also were not expecting to see a big budget adventure film with a downer ending--the romantic leads ending up emotionally separated by their experiences instead of united. And they didn't expect to feel bad when the monster died.
So I put it to you all that not only was the 1976 Kong a financial success, it was also an artistic success. But you can't watch it as a remake of a classic film. It is no more a remake of the 1933 King Kong than Quentin's Kill Bill is a remake of Sonny Chiba's Streetfighter's Revenge. Watch the film for what it is, not what you think it should have been, or what you wanted it to be, and you will be better able to appreciate its cracked brilliance.
Rating:
Summary: A Fun, Cute Classic!
Review: I thought this movie was pretty good. Of course there wasn't anything cute about the monkey but the story itself was cute. You see how the ape kidnaps the lady and falls madly in love with her, smashing and killing anything and everything that gets in his way. Being that I was only 5 years old when the remake premiered at theatres, I didn't realize this version had come from an original until around '87 or 88', after watching the 1933 version on television one late Friday night.
Rating:
Summary: Laughable, almost send-up-like, remake.
Review: This is a typical example of a disappointing re-make. True, this film has an atmospheric soundtrack and some great views of New York at night, but it is made to look tiny by its predecessor. In fact, despite cinematic advances, everything in this film is feeble compared to the classic '33 version. Willis O'Brien's impressive animated Kong, who was as much a character as any of the human cast, is replaced by a man in a suit version, who just comes across as a big drip. The giant wall in the '33 original is replaced by a wooden stockade. The truly dramatic dinosaurs are replaced by a giant snake which looks like a draught excluder and is about as frightening. According to the makers of the seventies Kong film, they didn't have the money for animated monsters. Strange then that they spent a few million on a full-size robotic King Kong. The robot Kong is on the screen for about five seconds, looks nothing like the man-in-suit, and is lifelessly stiff. The human characters of this re-make are equally disappointing. The movie-making story of the original film is replaced by an uninteresting hunt for oil, and Jessica Lange is plain irritating. The in-jokes about meeting tall dark strangers and so on just make you feel the film is sending itself up.
Do yourself a favour and buy the far superior RKO version, which includes the master-work of Willis O'Brien (the father of stop-motion).
Rating:
Summary: A poor monkey in love looking to get his f__k on
Review: It's funny to watch this now. Jessica Lange is in full, "Tee-hee! Look At Me! I'm Pretty!!" mode and it's amusing to watch her be all girly. The fact is it managed to leave me with a few nightmares, of seeing a giant ape destroying a metropolitan city miles away in the distance, and me hiding under my bed as I heard his thundering footsteps getting closer, nonetheless finding me like Kong finds Lange in that bar. Scary. What also stood out is the menacing score. Too bad this dvd doesn't feature any of the additional 45 minutes of footage that was added for television broadcast. Maybe Paramount will opportunistically wait until Jackson's version to re-release this as a special edition.
Rating: 
Summary: highly entertaining
Review: I'm a fan of monsters and fun and I loved this version of the King Kong story as a boy. I still love it today. It's sweet and funny and charming. It has a great cast and a lovable Kong. It also brought tears to my eyes as a kid. This film will forever have a special place in my heart - and a special place on my DVD shelf next to the original Kong. Thanks Dino Delaurentis!
Rating:
Summary: Very Good Version
Review: This version doesn't have the same charm of the original one in black & white, where Fray Way makes the girl's character who King Kong falls in love.
Though she brings the ambitious producing idea of Dino De Laurentis, that built an incredible mechanical giant monkey for part of the scenes, besides the great photograph work shown in the film.
It is really an indispensable film.
For the fans still remains the expectation by the end of the filmings of the third version of the great monkey saga which is being rotated in New Zealand by the same director of the
" Lord of the Rings " trilogy, Peter Jackson.
|
