KING KONG (1976) **1/2 Love triangle with a big monkey. The cross-species simian eroticism is enough to induce nausea in all but the most tasteless, but the worst part is probably what Jessica Lange inspired in others. These scenes are no doubt the template responsible for the gross overstatements of Bo Derek in Tarzan the Apeman, and Lange's character is obviously the blueprint for Victoria Beckham's public persona. Jessica, it must be said, isn't nearly as irritating as Victoria, or as ridiculous as Bo, but it's also fair to say that she plays the part somewhere between a lobotomized Holly Golightly and Marilyn Monroe getting up in the morning. I'm not entirely sure why this film was made, to show off some special effects stuff, I think. But even with Kong looking slightly more realistic (but not particularly so), he's somehow lost much of his gravitas, of his hubris, of his...elegance. He isn't as scary, he isn't as wild. The cultural face-off between Charles Grodin (whose final scene with Kong is probably the best of the movie), as a pompous and tasteless capitalist, and Jeff Bridges, as the beard and intellectual face of the counterculture, is occasionally entertaining, if not particularly convincing. When Jeff threatens that corporate misconduct would lead to "the kids" burning down every Petrox station in the country, it's nice to think that such a threat could have ever had credence. But worse to comprehend aspects of the underlying reality that made it so. The scene where Jeff applauds the efforts of "the Kong" against the American military (just following orders) feeds from the same trough of mutated idealism, and impassioned dementia. I'm not trying to say that this is a film that makes you think, or at least I shouldn't be and it shouldn't. It's never aiming for any higher than entertaining and amusing, and it mainly gets there. Comparisons with the 1933 classic are fair, and inevitable, but not necessary.
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