Kong

[Jeff Matthews]

King Kong was very well done. A few criticisms were: (1) idiotic-looking natives should have been more like "people," (2) some movies really don't NEED humor, but they keep putting a little humor into EVERY movie these days (I wish they'd stop on some), and (3) the girl chases Kong to too many extremes (like she climbs up the last ladder to the pinnacle of the building), and the guy chases the girl to the same extremes.

Other than these, which I will emphasize as very minor, the movie was very entertaining. The star, King Kong, had the best character traits by far as compared to older versions.

[merkin]

I thought it was too long and too boring. Sum of movie = Naomi Watts starring at Kong, Kong starring at Watts, Jack black looking out the top of his eyes, antimation of monsters fighting and throwing stuff around New York. Kong's size didn't stay consitant, hell he couldn't have fit on the boat. 45 minutes to get to Skull Island. 2 hrs and 45 minutes to get to New York. Unfortunately there was a clock in the front of the theater that reminded me that it was taking too long for a story to develope and then one almost didn't.

Of course I have to admit I didn't like LOTR either. Way to many panoramic scenes and not enough story. Lets see another pretty landscape with backround music. Yawn!!!

[Colin]

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Bumpity comment, shamelessly designed to float this topic to the surface again. Anybody else?

[intotubes]

Yeah, I really liked it. I'll admit it was a little slow going at first. Like they could have cut the first hour. I didn't know it was so long but my 47 year old butt said it was getting to be a long movie.

Awesome animation. Best dinosaurs I have ever seen. Non-stop b-movie type action. Very entertaining IMO.

merkin, don't take it so serious. Have fun.

I recommend it. I wouldn't take little kids though, some of the island scenes were a little troubling (what with the giant cockroaches and all).

Mark

[oscarsear]

Did the Kong last night.........

I 's'pose if you're gonna remake a classic that you might as well do a good job of it. It's sorta like you'd wished the 1st Kong would have been...but we didn't really need 2 versions of the same thing (the middle King Kong movie was a joke and doesn't count).

Too long......... Overdone screen action.....Kong fights no less than 3 T-Rex's at one time, while holding on to Naomi, of course...

But...... If I was a kid and saw this I'd have loved everything except the 1st 40 minutes.

It really is worth seeing.....once.

[Colin]

I wanted to walk away thrilled. Maybe I saw it too late at night, but I was unmoved. Cant really recommend it. There are better action flicks out there and more moving movies. Everything was very good, but many movies do the same things better. For example. I watched the A&E show on Star Wars last night. Although decades old and lots of obvious production problems, the acting, action, special effects and the music made for one epic adventure. Compared to Kong, I would rather watch Star Wars 1 through 4, <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />JurassicPark and Titanic again. Downfall, Capote and Walk the Line are better movies.

Probably too long, a 2 hour version would really get things moving. [:|]

[nicholtl]

Seems I share the same sentiments on this one as everyone else.

Peter Jackson definitely needs to learn to make shorter films. 3 hours and 15 minutes this film was. It was about 1 hour and 15 minutes too long, by my calculations.

For what he had to work with, and considering he stayed relatively faithful to the original work, we must commend him. It was quite amazing to have such feeling and texture conveyed in scenes where nothing but smiles and movements are exchanged between Naomi Watts and Kong. And he's computer generated to boot!

But therein also lies one of the film's greatest downfalls. The dinosaur scene. That was quite possibly the worst CGI I've ever seen. EVER. During the stampede, was it just me, or did everyone literally look like they were running on a treadmill in front of a green-screen? The superimposed images were so fake, it was - no joke - laughable.

And the big Brontosaurus pile-up? What was that about? It went on for 5 minutes (which was 5 minutes too long by my calculations), had no justification or ramification, no purpose, and nothing in that scene was accomplished. I wasn't even entertained. It was pointless and, for lack of a better film critic word, stupid.

To add insult to injury, most of the acting was terrible. Adrien Brody needs to stick to period-pieces. He has no place in action movies. Not with that nose of his (sorry, had to throw that in there). And Jack Black? Peter Jackson, WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?! Jack Black has no place in any movie unless it has to do with alcohol, being fat, and schticky humor.

And finally, to the thread started, Jeff Matthews, I could not agree with your point #1 more. Is that about as racist as it gets, or what? Hell, for all Peter Jackson cares, why didn't he just replace the natives with orcs from his LOTR trilogy? Personally, I know I would barely be able to tell the difference.

I can't believe I was dragged into seeing this movie twice. What a waste of my life. I want my 6 hours and 30 minutes back!

[dblue]

I agree, the brontosaurus scene should have been cut (kicking raptors in the head? What is this Jurrasic Park 2?)

It should also have been much shorter...kinda seemed like King Long.

And the ice scene toward the end...I think that took it down about 3 or 4 notches for me....how cheesey.

Not a horrible film, but not a very good one.

[Colin]

On a New Years weekend battle watching spree, I saw a number of epic war movies: the amazingly faithful reenactment of the deadliest three days of the worse battle of the deadliest US war, Gettysburg; the bizarre heroics of Peter OToole in Lawrence of Arabia; the staggering defeat and then victory of the British against the swarm of Zulu hordes in Africa; and the mythic battles of Lord of the Rings, Return of the King.

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The last film showed me what was wrong with Kong. In LTR, episode 3, <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Jackson introduces one deadly character or army with the same music and scary, deep sound effects over and over again, only to have the bad guys easily defeated by our doubting heroes. The CGI wears me out after awhile. It is so lush with redundant details that everything, including the live actors, begin to look fake. It is so unremittingly dark that brightness and light seem false.

After seeing the two movies within two weeks of each other, I am not surprised that Peter Jackson is chubby. He looks like a man with no restraint. Nothing is omitted, everything is included. Too much story, dialogue, setting, characters, details, action, special effects, music and sound effects. Both movies are carnivals of talent. He can not throw nothing away.

This is one of the best movies of the year?[]

[dblue]

Hmmm...I don't agree on the ROTK criticism, but to each his

own....There were a few things regarding Frodo and Sam in the extended

edition that almost made me wretch (how many times can Sam describe the

shire, with the shire theme playing and lava all around them?)

But yes, Kong had waay too much going on for what it was.

Also, have you seen Pete lately? He's lost at least 80 or 90 lbs, doens't even look the same.

[Jeff Matthews]

I was still entertained, but as long as we're kicking it, I'll add that I never saw a gorilla trained in Kung-Fu!

[RickB]

There were a few laugh out loud lame parts in Kong, but my wife and 10 year old loved it and I was entertained so it was alright by me.

[toddvj]

After seeing the two movies within two weeks of each other, I am not surprised that Peter Jackson is chubby. He looks like a man with no restraint.

He's not chubby anymore.

He can not throw nothing away.

So, he can throw something away?

[nicholtl]

Brad Pitt and Edward Norton probably stole it and made it into bars of soap.

[toddvj]

No, not really. They are really the same person.

[neo33]

This movie sucks!

I could do better things with Trinity during this 3 hours.

[Larry1]

This movie sucks!

I could do better things with Trinity during this 3 hours.

Then I bet you really liked that scene where the cook got eaten by the oversized slugs down in the canyon. They could have left out that scene....I would have preferred a pack of roaches overpowering him, or perhaps a giant bat flying off with him. []

[Colin]

hey, I liked that scene, bold, scary, without being gory.[]

[Def Leper]

When you compare the latest Kong against the original Kong, it's amazing that they could do so much with so little in the original, and that Jackson could do so little with so much in the remake.

I agree it could stand some mild trimming. That said, however, most folks of the fast food generation don't have the attention spans or comprehension to digest anything that takes place in a time span longer than a few minutes, so the time complaints are not surprising.

It was interesting to see Weta digital meet it's match and fail to hit the target on the CGI, but at the same time to see the performance capture system elevated to a new level.

The music complaints might be unfounded. Apparently Howard Shore left or was fired from the project with very little time remaining, and James Newton Howard had to produce a score and record it in only a few weeks. Althtough that helps by having a fairly stable cut to work with, it does require machine gun scoring.

Jack Black-- Perfect casting . His character is a type of the obsessed director. I thought it obvious that he looks so much like a young Orson Welles, Jackson's uberhero, and shares the single-minded obsession with getting his shots, just like Jackson himself.

Alas, like M. Night Shyamalan, Mr. Jackson needs stories with more meat on them. (And I don't mean Dinosaur meat.) He needs to stay away from remakes and stick with stories that other directors are afraid to tackle.