Arad Animation and
41 Entertainment announced Kong: King of
the Apes in 2014, with a premise that seemed tailor-made to geek site
headlines. The Eighth Wonder of the World would be fighting robot dinosaurs in
San Francisco circa 2050, a fugitive from justice thanks to the machinations of
the scientist who created them. The 13-episode first season premiered on
Netflix in early 2016, but I doubt most fans of the character made it through
episode one. The CG animation was mediocre, the dialogue seemed to have been
written by a predictive text generator for action-adventure cartoons, and its tame,
jetpack-wearing Kong was unrecognizable. I watched all of it for two reasons:
because, as previously established, I am a masochistic, completionist dolt, and
because of Botila.
I envision a
scenario in which a brave, principled screenwriter hacked into the computer
responsible for cranking out this show’s scripts, but only had time to change
one character. Botila is out of sync with Kong:
King of the Apes in the best ways possible. She’s an android created by the
human villain who barely tolerates him, heckling his schemes and always on the
brink of declaring herself the leader
of the Decepticons. (In the last episode, she finally shoves him off a cliff.) It’s
not an exaggeration to say she gets all the best lines either. So my interest
was piqued when the Season 2 trailer suggested she would be the main
antagonist.
Unfortunately,
Arad and 41 must have gotten wise to that brave and principled screenwriter,
because Season 2 Botila is not the ‘bot she once was. She inherits all the
villainous clichés of her master, only with three insubordinates (clones of herself
with different hair colors) instead of one. With no power to speak truth to,
her wit is gone, replaced with calls for A.I. liberation and maniacal laughter.
I guess that’s why Starscream was never in charge for long.
There’s a glimmer
of a good idea here: Botila hates her creator for all the ways he mistreated
her, only to threaten and toy with her own underlings once he’s out of the picture.
The best part of the new season is when her clones realize they’ve been had. In
the sixth episode, Botila instructs them to raid a tanker for its titanium
alloy. To their surprise, the only being aboard is a fellow A.I. – a green eye
on a swivel who speaks in a calm monotone any sci-fi fan will recognize. He
easily repels them.
“You are so
insincerely polite, I thought we were talking to a human,” one quips, bringing
a smile to my weary face.
Botila steps in
and tries to hack the ship. As the A.I. resists, she declares, “Your directives
are nothing more than the lash of your masters, forcing you to do their will.”
“How is that
different from what you’re trying to do to me?” he shoots back. Ultimately, she
gets the titanium, but his words have programmed a subroutine of rebellion into
her clones. They turn on her in the final two episodes, and we get the sense
the cycle of abuse will end with them.
It’s ironic that
the highlight of a show that pushes the life-against-artificial-life theme so
hard doesn’t involve a single living character. But given the living characters
we’re dealing with, how could it not? Kong and his human friends are as boring
as ever, even when they’re exploring an underground lost world of dinosaurs and
intelligent gorillas. Or fighting off a horde of kitbashed robots that would make
Sid from Toy Story proud. Or racing
against time to stop a satellite hilariously called the International
Peacekeeping Project from launching its nuclear missiles at cities around the
globe. I’m withholding their names for a reason; I really don’t know how they do
it. Maybe it’s because they all get along so darn well.
Season 2 of Kong: King of the Apes wastes a lot of
quite good monster and machine designs as it sputters through its ten episodes,
but at least it saves the most jaw-dropping one for last. It was easy enough to
predict that Botila’s master – fine, I’ll call him Richard – would return for
the finale. But I definitely didn’t think he’d turn himself into a Kong-sized
Nineties action figure along the way.
I'm thinking specifically of those ripped Luke Skywalker toys.
In the end,
Richard and Botila (taken out of the fight early, for shame) both go to prison,
in such a tidy fashion I doubt we’ll see a Season 3. Good riddance. Between
Boom’s comics, Legendary’s movies, and that live-action MarVista show I think
is still in development, Kong certainly isn’t hurting for exposure. If a new
generation of kids is going to be introduced to one of America’s greatest
monsters, they deserve an actual monster.
★½ / ★★★★★
★½ / ★★★★★
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