Help! I need somebody's help!

[hqckers]

This is the year's inescapable movie. Nothing anyone says about it is going to quell the curiosity of the multitudes regarding this, the biggest comeback of them all. Nor should it. The special effects are marvelous, the good-humored script is comic-bookish, and there are two excellent performances. One is by Charles Grodin as the leader of the expedition that starts out looking for oil and ends up with this large, furry problem on its hands. The other is, of course, by that combination of men and machinery that create the Mighty Kong. The expressive range they have provided for him is far wider than that of any previous movie monster. Damned if one doesn't begin to feel for and with him, as his wicked capitalist captors exploit him in order to sell gasoline.



It is a great technical achievement. It is also an aesthetic mistake, particularly disappointing to those who had seen the movie's highly promising first half at press screenings earlier this year. It was Aristotle's prescription that tragedy should evoke a blend of pity and terror. In Kong the balance is tipped too far toward pity. He's such a nice guy, such a cupcake really, that one never feels that Jessica Lange, playing the light of his life, is in any true danger.

When the old Kong breaks loose in New York, he is angry—no question about it. He will have his vengeance on his captors and on those who come to gawk at his pain. The new Kong does accidentally mangle a few people, but there's no real rage in him.

It may be that though the legend of Kong works on something that is perpetually child like in everyone, it was never meant for children .

[hqckers]

I've to translate it into french! Such a hard task for me!