RECENT WATCHES: Kong: Return to the Jungle (2007)

That “Kong: The Animated Series,” a largely forgotten and deeply mediocre cartoon, got a sequel movie four years after it ended is surprising. That it received two seems irrational. Yet it is true. In fall of 2006, a special extended edition of Peter Jackson's “King Kong” was released on DVD. BKN International took the opportunity to ride those coattails one more time and see if they could squeeze a little more blood out of this particular stone. While “Kong: King of Atlantis” was practically indistinguishable from the TV show that spawned it, the second follow-up is notable for an all together different reason. “Kong: Return to the Jungle” would ditch the serviceable, if bland, traditional animation of the show for what the DVD cover refers to as “state-of-the-art CGI.” I don't think anyone will be surprised to learn that statement is misleading, to say the least.  

“Return to the Jungle” goes back to Kong Island and reintroduces us to “The Animated Series'” heroes: teenage adventurer Jason Jensen, his genius scientist grandmother, comic relief buddy Tann, island shaman girl Lua, and the giant gorilla Kong that connects all of them. Their peaceful existence is interrupted when arch-nemesis Ramon De La Porta returns. He leads a big-game hunter named Stag Hunter to the island. Hunter has built a high-tech zoo in Manhattan and intends to populate it with Kong, the dinosaurs, and other extinct megafauna that populate the island. It's all a scheme to unleash the animals on the city, so Stag can hunt them for sport and De La Porta can take the fall. Jason and his pals head to NYC to save their hairy friend from the unhinged hunter and a military eager to protect the city. 

By 2007, CGI was well established as the primary animation format for feature films. Maybe this is why the “Kong” producers decided to go this route. However, within minutes, it's clear that the budget was not available to realize this vision. At least one Letterboxd review compares the film's appearance to a PlayStation 2 game, which I think is really unfair to the PS2. “Return to the Jungle” is, simply, one of the ugliest movies I've ever seen. The models are shiny, their movements stiff and weightless. Characters seem to frequently float through the air. Any time someone interacts with another person or the environment, the two simply don't seem to occupy the same space. This results in action scenes where characters limply flop around against each other. The facial expressions are robotic and gap-mouthed. The colors are flat, the environments lacking details. At one point, the animators used pixelated photographs and literal GIFs in lieu of art design. On more than one occasion, backgrounds can clearly be seen glitching out. But that implies that the entire movie doesn't look like one long glitch...

Even if “Kong: Return to the Jungle” had fantastic writing, it would be impossible to overlook how hideous the animation is. Of course, the movie doesn't have a decent script. I can't believe I'm saying this but I don't think this cartoon respects the lore of “Kong: The Animated Series.” Despite ending the show in a vegetative state, Professor De La Porta returns without any explanation here. He showed nothing but contempt for Kong and the Jensens in the show but seems to have a begrudging respect for them now. Originally, Lua had an independent and often stubborn personality. Here, she's nothing but a fawning female lead, going along with everything the boys offer. Jason's grandmother becomes another totally subservient female figure, baking pies for the guys and dropping exposition. None of the show's other extensive mythology, like the Primal Stones or the island's history, are mentioned. I didn't think “Kong: The Animated Series” had an especially deep or well thought-out cast of characters or plotting. Somehow, “Return to the Jungle” dumbs down what was already a middling, shallow cartoon show.

Part of why “Kong: Return ot the Jungle” comes off as so didactic is because the dialogue is loaded down with exposition. In addition to simplifying already flat characters, “Return to the Jungle” goes out of its way to explain who everyone is and what their deal is. The first half-hour of this 78 minute movie is largely devoted to explaining Kong and Jason's background. That the giant gorilla is a clone of an original Kong, though seemingly not the original Kong from the 1933 movie. That Jason shares his DNA with him, that this allows the two to magically connect. The script is burdened with “As you know” dialogue, such as the repeated references to Lua being the island's shaman or Tann being the son of a billionaire. While “Kong: The Animated Series” occasionally featured an environmental message, “Return to the Jungle” really hammers home this moral about respecting wild life. Making the villain such a cartoonishly evil animal hater defangs a message that kids probably do need to hear. 

Making the previous “Kong: The Animated Series” movie a musical was incredibly distracting, not to mention embarrassing. “Return to the Jungle” kind of maintains this change, though it finds a compromise of sorts. There are three original songs in the movie but they simply play over action scenes. The heroes don't burst into song and dance, thankfully. The first song, which introduces Kong's status as king of the jungle, is even kind of catchy. The second number, played during a painfully animated flashback to Jason and the gorilla's childhood, isn't great but was tolerable. The third song, however, played when our heroes are running around New York City, made my teeth clench pretty hard. All things considered, I really don't understand the desire to make songs such a big part of an action movie about a giant gorilla. 

I'll give “Kong: Return to the Jungle” positive notices for one element: The movie returns to “King Kong” tradition by having the gorilla rampage through New York City and fight a T-Rex, something “The Animated Series” downplayed. In fact, the movie makes the Tyrannosaurus Rex Kong's biggest enemy. All things considered though, “Return to the Jungle” is extremely dire slop only suitable for the most undiscerning child audiences. In the department of computer generated hemorrhoids, it avoids being as eye-scorchingly hideous as “Rapsittie Street Kids” or those weird, low budget Christian cartoons... But just barely. It's hard to be too down on a movie clearly made with so little resources, by so few people. (IMDb only lists forty people in the entire credits.) I suspect the entire movie was rushed through production in a few months. Yet there's no way around how deeply uncomfortable it is to look at this thing. When paired with a totally half-assed script, it makes “Kong: Return to the Jungle” an intensely unpleasant viewing experience. [2/10]