King Kong

This topic contains:

• overall comments and recommendations
• details about King Kong's classification and consumer advice lines
• a review of King Kong completed by Young Media Australia (YMA) on 11 December 2005.

Overall comments and recommendations

King Kong is and epic action movie which also tells a powerful love story. In terms of adult viewing, it provides excellent entertainment, with very good visual effects, character development and acting.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) and the associated consumer advice lines.

YMA review

This review of the movie King Kong contains the following information:

• a synopsis of the story
• use of violence
• material that may scare children
• product placement
• sexual references
• nudity and sexual activity
• use of substances
• coarse language
• the movie's message

A synopsis of the story

Carl Denham (Jack Black) is a motion picture director who plans to shoot a film on Skull Island in the South Pacific. He travels there from New York aboard a tramp steamer, with his actors Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) and Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody), and number of film making crew.

On Skull Island, the group are attacked by the island’s local inhabitants (very primitive natives), and although they are rescued by the tramp steamer’s captain, Captain Englehorn (Thomas Kretschmann), Ann is captured by King Kong, a twenty five-foot high giant gorilla. Driscoll and Englehorn attempt to rescue her, and must battle a number of prehistoric monsters and other fierce creatures. In the meantime Kong has fallen in love with Ann, so that when she is taken back to the steamer, he tries to get her back and is captured after being sedated by chloroform.

Denham takes Kong back to New York, and puts him on public display, chaining him to poles. But when the flashing lights of photographers aggravate Kong, he breaks his chains and begins to search the streets of New York for his beloved Ann, resulting in much chaos, destruction and heartbreak.

Use of violence

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is a lot of violence in this movie, much of it brutal and gruesome, including:

• a violent clash between the natives of Skull Island and Denham’s cast of actors and crew
  
• a cast member is speared in the back, with the spear protruding two feet from his chest
  
• throats are cut and two of the crew are ritually beheaded
  
• Captain Englehorn shoots several of the natives, allowing his companions to make their escape
  
• Meat-eating dinosaurs attack the group
  
• a brutal and gruesome fight between Kong and two Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaurs.
  
• Kong kills the ship’s first mate
  
• Kong shakes people from a log bridge resulting in them falling to their deaths
  
• Kong throws people around like rag dolls
  
• an army of giant and very creepy insects attack and eat members of the group alive
  
• Kong rampages through the streets of New York picking up a number of women who look like Ann, then tossing them aside when he realises they are not her
  
• Kong is repeatedly shot in the chest and back, while Ann looks on in horror.

Material that may scare children

Under eight

Children under eight are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations, the death of a parent or child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

In addition to the above mentioned violent scenes, there are some scary scenes in this movie that could traumatise or disturb younger children. including the following:

• the creature Kong himself is very scary, with giant teeth, a large gaping mouth, a frightening roar and a threatening manner
  
• man-eating Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaurs terrorise and eat members of the group
  
• giant vampire bat-like creatures with large protruding fangs.
  
• giant man eating insects. One scene depicts the group being attacked and overrun by these giant insects with one person being consumed by giant maggot-like creatures with six- inch fangs surrounding their mouths
  
• one of these insect creatures slowly consumes a person’s head while others consume his arms and legs—a truly sickening scene
  
• the native village on Skull Island contains images of numerous rotting bodies impaled on wooden stakes, human skeletons hanging from wooden stakes and piles of human skulls and bones.
  
• many of Skull Island’s natives are scary and evil looking with bones piercing their lips. One of the natives is particularly scary looking, resembling a witch or hag

Parents are strongly cautioned that these strong visual images could seriously disturb children under eight.

Aged eight to thirteen

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

All of the scenes described above could disturb children aged eight to thirteen years. Children under the age of ten years are at greater risk of being traumatised than children who are closer to the age of thirteen years.

Over the age of thirteen

Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

Children over the age of thirteen years should be able to cope with the scary visual images in the movie, but may still be disturbed by the scene in which the group is attacked and eaten by the giant insect-like creatures.

Sexual references

There are two mild sexual references in this movie:

• it is implied that Ann has the looks and talent to be an exotic dancer and should seek work as such.
  
• the term “boobies” is used when commenting that people only go to documentary type films to see the naked chests of native women.

Nudity and sexual activity

There is no nudity or sexual activity in this movie, other than a brief shot of Jack Driscoll’s naked upper torso.

Use of substances

There is some use of substances, including:

• a number of scenes in which members of the group are smoking cigarettes.
  
• Carl Denham brings a number of cases of whisky on board. He swigs from a hip flask on several occasions, and at one point takes several large sculls from a bottle of whisky.

Coarse language

The film contains infrequent and mild coarse language, including:

• jumped up little turd
  
• crapping the crappers
  
• goddamn it
  
• what the hell
  
• where the hell
  
• don’t give a damn
  
• Christ.

The movie's message

King Kong is depicted as a gentle giant who displays more humanity than the humans in the movie, who with the exception of Ann, show only greed and hunger for destruction.

Values parents may wish to encourage include the compassion, love and warmth that Ann feels towards Kong the beast, Ann’s display of selflessness, and the heroic manner in which she tries to protect Kong.

Parents may wish to discuss the selfish, destructive and greed driven nature of humanity and its effect on the inhabitants and wildlife of Skull Island. They could discuss Carl Denham in particular, a man only interested in promoting himself, and willing to exploit and destroy all those around him in pursuing his egocentric greed driven aims.