*** Official KING KONG Review Thread (1 Viewer)

[Arjan S]

I guess I'm the only person here who will give it a scathingly bad review.

Warning spoilers ahead and through out.

I saw it yesterday and boy was I disappointed.

The opening scenes in New York, and the boat were too long. I don't mind setting up characters as long as they are interesting and doing interesting things. But they are boring one dimensional stereotypes.(IE innocent actress, greedy producer, naive writer.)Actually none of the characters have a back story to how they got there in life. There is no memorable dialog or dramatic tension between the characters. Normally this would not bother me but but if your going to have an hour to set up the characters make it good.

Then when they get to the island, there is some amazing visuals such as when Ann is tied and lowered towards Kong.Then there are amazingly bad visuals such as Jack Black kicking a dinosaur in the head during the stampede and another character punching out another dinosaur unconscious with one punch. I think it was the Brody character punching a raptor. The whole stampede section is where the whole movie lost credibility with me. Then to top it off Kong beats up numerous t-rexes.

At this point i said to myself well it's just a fantasy film, go with it assume Jack Black and Brody have superhuman stengh. But then moments after punching a raptor out, the Brody character can't get a large cricket like insect off himself and needs the jimmy kid to shoot it off. Another absurd visual is when Kong is shaking Ann violently or when Ann dances for Kong.

Then they finally get to New York, although it isn't explained how they get Kong there with such a small boat. But times square New York does look good. Unfortunately, at this time I didn't care for any of the characters and thought the ice Skating sequence was another unnecessary absurdity.

I thought the Actors did do a good job, although Jack Black was terribly miscast, people were laughing at the wrong times at him, but that was the fault of whoever cast him.

Some viewed the film as racist.I guess it could be argued either way since there was a positive black character on the boat to offset the negative portrayal of savages on the island. I could see both sides of the argument.

I had read the special effects were amazing and the best ever seen. Well,I felt Jurassic Park had better dinosaur effects and Gangs of New York did a better portrayal of the different ethnicities present in New York which give New York it's distinct feel. Plus I think Gangs gave me more realistic feeling and I felt I was really there. Overall I felt the Kong was not that impressive and not different then other Cgi characters. I guess I was expecting some brake through special effects like 2001,Star Wars, Terminator 2 and more recently The Matrix. The special effects were good but nothing I hadn't seen before.

Overall, I thought the film had paper thin characters, bad dialog, nobody to care about, bad music some absurd scenes which caused me to laugh out load.

I give it one point for excellent sound design and another point for so bad its good(laughability) and not being so bad its just bad.

Overall 2/10

 

[Dave Scarpa]

I thought it the Best of all the remakes. I thought the Length was just right to allow for a Buildup and character moments. The film did make you care about most of the characters. I'm midway on the casting of Jack Black and the villification of Denhem. Denhem in both the films realized his mistake in bringing Kong back, I would like to see a bit stronger of an Actor in the Role of Denham. Anyone think Patrick Stewart could've pulled it off? Anyhow the audience at the end all cried so I guess Jackson got what he was going after. I'm split between the camp who wanted to see Kong be more of a Menacing Monster but can understand why Jackson went the other direction. He did make Kong more of an Animal, really just a big Primate, and really telegraphed why he was so attached to Ann. I thought the Sliding Scene to be the most Beautiful thing I've seen on Film in a while. It was Romantic in a way, but not Overtly Sexual like the Jessica Lange Version, more of an owner and his trusted Pet. Kong plays that role as he does Protector to Ann. It was a sad movie but in a good way.

*** 1/2

I still like the Original the best as a MONSTER movie , but this was a very good film

Ooh the insects and the Head Sucking Slugs were pretty Nasty.

 

[Seth Paxton]

Man, is Tino going to love this (he said sarcastically - I can hear the phone ringing already )

Copy from the 2005 film thread

King Kong
7.5 of 10
One word - overwritten.

There are too many extra characters, too many redundent scenes, too many non-essential scenes, and what is there often runs on 2 minutes too long.

The original is McKee template at its best. You're on the boat with the girl in just a few minutes, the entire opening premise laid out. Here there must be about 30 minutes of character background spoonfeeding that it utterly pointless. Did we need to meet this grandpa type in the girl's background? Is her plight not enough just as a girl on the street stealing food just to live, instead we must know the details of how she got that way and how far she's almost willing to go?

Get on with it already. Really AWFUL screenwriting there. The second the plucky young shipmate and the rugged veteran sailor who found him as a stowaway make their appearance you're hard pressed not to groan.

On top of that just edit some of this stuff down. The action scenes run on and on and on at times which kills the "pop" of a great action moment. And the "Bronto run" features some dreadful green-screen work and yucky CGI.


Kong on the other hand is brilliantly created. The CGI for him is a big reason this film remains a 7.5 and it will make you wonder why Jackson wasn't in a bigger hurry to get to him in the first place.

I did feel for Kong and the film got increasingly better as it went along, with less and less pointless scenes showing up. That's not to say that a certain "skating" scene in the park won't feel like needless extra emotional manipulation in the last act, but at least its not 80% waste like the first act is full of.

So Kong = great. Jack Black is pretty impressive despite having his own character rewritten in a rather silly way. Watts is okay, but rather bland by the standards of her other work.

This should have been a 4 character piece ala Closer, that tight. Just some extras to take up space with zero development. All the emotional dynamics should be with Kong, Watts, Black and Brody. EVERY other character introduced in Jackson's film is completely overwritten and distracting.

Pry them out, trim a lot of the story/action scene fat off, and in there you have a pretty good remake of a classic film.

Very frustrating to see it turn out like this. At least the original is out on a fantastic DVD and displays what great, crisp storytelling is like.

Disgree. The '33 version did it perfectly and it took about 5 minutes. Gung ho filmmaker, girl down on her luck, we get it, now move.