jaeufraser

I too loved this film. The box office befuddles me honestly...people are really missing out on a great film here. Not that it's bombing but it certainly is underperforming.

But as for the film...simply a visual wonder. Dense with detail and variety, drama adventure anything you could want. It's just a jack of all trades and it works brilliantly, not to mention just a beautfiul movie to look at. This will be one of the few films this year I actually watch twice.

Terrell

I hate writing reviews, and I'm not good at it. I usually just give a rating and move on. But I'll write one here. I finally saw this film last night and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

The Good:

I thought everyone in the cast did a commendable job, except for Jack Black. He overracted his entire part, and his constant bug-eyed look was unintentionally funny. Watts was very good, but I'm not sure it's an Oscar worthy performance. Adrian Brody, through no fault of his own, felt miscast. He just seemed out of place in this film. But his peformance as Driscoll was solid. Perhaps I couldn't get his role in the Pianist out of my mind.

The high point of the film for me was the ending on the Empire State buildingh, even if it was drawn out for far too long. I particularly liked the scenes of Kong holding Ann when the biplanes come, as well as small scenes like the one just after Kong kills the last Rex and the ice scene. Scenes like that genuinely made me feel for Kong. It was a beautifully executed scene, and the recreation of old New York was fantastic as well.

The T-Rex fight was exceptional, if a bit too indulgent. One T-Rex would have been more than enough. A case of Jackson trying to outdo the original. Completely uneccesary.

Of course, Kong himself stole the show. Excellent work by Weta. The single best effect in any film this year. That was a given, especially considering the character. The only way he could not be was if Weta goofed. Although I still say Aslan by R&H was just as good.

I thought the production and costume design were exceedingly well done.


The Bad:

I can't agree with Cancer Man on the effects. Some of the work by Weta was nothing short of jawdropping. However, out of the 7 films in the VFX Oscar bakeoff, this film had the most inconsistent work in the effects department. Many background jungle shots and jungle environments did not look convincing at all. The bronto stampede was awful, with unconvincing CG work and poor composite work. In fact, this film had many instances of bad composites. There were a numerous shots of Ann standing in the jungle which looked as though she was standing in front of a bluescreen. Another bad shot I remember was the boat bouncing in the water. Kong on the ice was a nice little scene, but this was one instance where the animation wasn't too hot.

Weta did some incredible work in the film, especially with Kong and New York. But their overall work was not as seamless or consistent as other films I've seen this year. They did better work as a whole in the LOTR films.

I also felt the film was way too long. I know many complain about this, but it is a legitimate criticism. Jackson spent too much time developing minor characters that had no payoff in the film. Thus the only characters I actually felt for was Ann and Kong, and this is where the film shined for me.

But just to illustrate a point, in the '76 Kong Jack had an affection for Kong and outwardly rooted him on in the final battle. In this Kong, Jack really didn't like Kong. I think because of this when Jack and Ann did reunite, it felt hollow and unrewarding.

Jackson went overboard with the T-Rex/Kong battle and made many of the action sequences far too long. He could have made one hell of battle with Kong fighting one T-Rex, but he tried to outdo the original by throwing 3 at him. Unecessary in my opinion.

I could nitpick this film as I could any film. But I liked this film despite my criticisms. It's not perfect, but what is? All in all a worthy remake of a classic film.

**** out of *****

Buttmunker

I would have to assume that, because of the holidays, people will not go the the movies until January.

johnnysd

I loved Kongs temper tantrum when Ann stopped doing her tricks. I loved the NYC special effects. Heck, I really liked the movie. I trhought it was pretty much as good as it could possibly be. My only complaint is that it was King Kong and a movie I have seen before. Would have preferred an original story based on the King Kong concept more, as long as Naomi was in it. Still a terrific film.

TexasDVDer

Haven't seen mentioned here that there are two sequels planned. That explains why Carl Denham wasn't stomped as he should have been.

Funny, I liked Jack Black better in the film than I did in the Production Diaries. His kind of humor doesn’t sit well with me.

I liked most of the visual effects except mainly for the stampede scene. Just too unbelievable. Like others I think the Heart of Darkness subplot didn’t add anything to the film.

Will get the DVD as soon as it’s released.

Cancer Man

I had no troubles with Jack Black at all, I felt he was decent enough as the flamboyant and eccentric Carl Denham; a film maker with an Orson Wells kind of persona, but a persona with a sliver of darkness. I can see Jack Black doing serious work in future, he seems to have the potential, but he does need to tone it down a little.

I had no real problem with the CGI or special effects, despite the obvious weak links like the brontosaurus stampede; the composite effects were appaling but I still saw the stampede as dumb fun that did not really ruin the film as such, even though that sequence looked weak in comparison to the V-Rex brawl, King Kong himself and the film's final in New York.

And I thought there was this old skool charm with the way Skull Island was depicted through hokey composite shots, perhaps Peter Jackson was harking back to the good old days of special effects, with obvious blue screen effects and silly matte paintings. Any typical Harryhausen film and the original 1933 version of Kong was heavily dependent on matte paintings and blue screen effects; either Weta were running a low on time or budget, or they intended the rare instances of weak special effects as an odd injoke or homage to old ropey special effects.

Terrell

Neither did I. Just thought the effects were nowhere near the level of Weta's best work in the film.

Jay G.

That's because there aren't any sequels planned. The production diary entry that announced them was initially released on April 1st.

Pointyskull

Saw it last night night
Damn, that was some terrific entertainment.

Kal-El

This was on the local paper today and I found it funny:

A FIDGETER'S GUIDE TO 'KONG'

Minute 1: Show up late and you'll really only miss the Depression montage (soup kitchens, thin coats, brr, hungry, etc.)

Minute 20: Enter Adrien Brody. (Not a fan? Nacho time.)

Minute 40: Skedaddle after the Naomi Watts-Adrien Brody smooch and you've got a 14-minute break before the appearance of creepity Skull Island

Minute 115: The epic beast beat-down (dinos, centipedes, gross pink fleshy roundworms with fangs)--it'll still be going when you return.

Minute 137: Kong is subdued. Sadness. Make medicinal Milk Dud run while the boat returns to NYC.

Minute 158: Don't leave your seat until after Kong destroys ol' Broadway -- red velvet theater chairs fly like winged Chiclets!

Minute 167: Watts and Kong reunited and it feels so…endless.

Minute 172: Opps, better hurry back -- it's Kong mayhem from the Empire State spire

Minute 187: Clap if you love Kong. It'll help restore the circulation.

riley_dude

I agree. What a ride! Fun and sad and some great actions scenes but not as shallow as say Episode 3.
Sure the effects were questionable in a few scenes and Black bugged me but I fell in love with the movie.

ChrisKnudsen

Rewatched it to just see if my reactions hold true, and yeah like I said earlier Jackson knows how to fuck up an excellent movie. If I could edit the movie, I could make it awesome but the early act is so dreadful to rewatch and some sequences could have been done without, I now give it **1/2 out of *****.

riley_dude

I loved that scene. One of my favorites.

Mr. Cinema

I still don't understand all the whining about the running time. I know the cool trend for this generation is to have every movie be 90 minutes long, but sometimes that's not always a good idea. Kong is not the first movie to be over 3 hours, but alot of people seem to think so.

matrixrok9

I'm whining about the running time because the movie would have been better if it was shorter. As one member said, the boat crew doesn't even appear in the last act, so why introduce them in the first hour. After Kong gets captured, they disappear. The character development doesn't pay off.

The action scenes would have been better if it was cut down. King Kong's fight with the V-Rex's should have ended after the V-Rex's fell. But no, it keeps on going. The stampede was a bit much as well, add the crappy cgi and you have an uncalled action scene. It also took too long for Kong to die once he got up on the building. It was to the point that I didn't care whether he died or not anymore.

I don't mind long movies if there's a point to it, but it seemed like Jackson made a bad choice on King Kong

fumanstan

Because the movie felt long and dragged on in a few places. It has nothing to do with "cool trends."

riley_dude

People have short attention spans. Everyone needs a quick fix of something and then onto the next thing. I thought the movie went pretty quick. Maybe a bit of editing would have been good, I agree, but I thought the film flowed rather well.

Duder

Amusingly, this is the one part of the movie that goes extremely fast, with a fade-out and then massive time and space jump to NY... There is no "boat returning to NYC," so you may not want to make your Milk Dud run here.

As for the whole length debate, after seeing the movie twice, I definitely agree that it could be shorter... but not by much. 10 minutes is about as much as I'd want to chop off.

Jay G.

Just a nit-pick, it's not really a "cool new trend" for a film to be of a shorter length. From a thread discussing the first KONG:

http://p075.ezboard.com/fmonsterkidc...picID=96.topic
So near 30 minutes of footage was trimmed from the original for the sake of pacing and time. And having a feature run under 2 hours has been a goal of filmmakers and studios for decades.

Which isn't to say that the new KONG commits a huge sin by running near 30 minutes. Unlike matrixrok9, I liked the near never-ending action sequences. Just when you think the situation can't get any more fantastic, the bronosauras start piling over each other, or the V-Rex vs. Kong fight extends to them fighting in vines while falling.

As for the Jimmy/Hayes relationship and character development, that was wasted. Oddly, I think this might've been a result of shortening the film to 3 hours, it seems like a resolution for the Jimmy character was cut. As it is in the film now, it'd be better if these scenes were completely cut, as they go nowhere. However, this might be a case of FOTR where an EE would add scenes that make it a better film, by resolving the Jimmy storyline.

Goat3001

I agree with those that say it dragged at parts. There are some movies that run 3+ hours long but they don't feel it (ex. Lord of the Rings), with King Kong you know its 3 hours long. Nothing really ruined the film but there were parts that could have been shorter. The fighting scenes seemed too long (the dinosaurs, bugs etc). The New York scenes were done very well, if Skull Island was just as long as New York we would've had a better movie without losing any emotional peices in my opinion.

However, I do think this was a good movie. It is visually brilliant and is meant to be seen on the big screen. There were some moments where I thought that certain things did not make much sense, but I had to let it go for this movie.

Good movie, I recommend it.

Kumar J

Saw it here, and the theater was packed.I felt some scenes were unneeded to make the movie a little bit shorter.I realized that they even cut the first scene where Kong roars from the first trailers and head straight to the gates area.Jimmy's scenes were not needed actually and more of Kong would have been nice.

B.A.

I thought it was good, but nowhere near great. *** out of *****. Kong was good. As were Miss Watts, Mr. Brody and Mr. Black. However, It was horribly long and there were far too many sequences that were either too long and/or completely unnecessary. As I said after RotK, Mr. Jackson needs a fellow producer to grow a pair of balls and introduce him to an editor.

And I went to a 12-screen theater - Kong was the only film on multiple screens (3) and it was jam-packed every showing.

vaporware

What is a v-rex and why did it negate your entire critique?

Jay G.

V-Rex is the name the filmmakers have given the T-Rex looking dinosaurs in the new KONG. They're not straight T-Rex models, but an imagined "evolution" of what a T-Rex might become.

tacomantt

Not a complaint, but for much of the movie I thought I was watching Jurassic Park IV.