King Kong

[cranefly]

I'll start with general comments that are spoiler-free. Then I'll draw a distinct line, below which there might be spoilers.

Jackson's King Kong is very much worth seeing. Just make certain you take a long hard whiz beforehand. It's a worthy remake, though flawed.
I love long movies, by the way. And I hate it when a studio forces a director to chop one down. But this could have been a half hour shorter, maybe more. There's several quiet scenes amid all the action. But they're not the problem. They should stay. The problem was some of the action sequences. They were highly repetitive and greatly weakened credibility.
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In case you missed it, we're now in the area of possible spoilers.
Three scenes that should have been cut, in order of need.
1) The geekish playwright in a taxi provoking Kong into a long chase. Yes, a fucking car chase. And it made zero sense that Kong couldn't catch a taxi driving backwards down a crowded street -- and that after he got a grip, he lost it. In the jungle, by comparison, he pounced on everything in sight with blinding speed. A wasted 5 minutes.
2) The brontosaur stampede down the narrow canyon, with the humans somehow running and surviving among their legs while also evading raptor-type saurs whose every snap at them is blocked by a brontosaur leg. My suspenders of disbelief snapped clear to the moon on this one. Very repetitious and unbelievable action.
3) Kong and the girl and two nasty saurs go over a cliff and keep getting hung up on a never-ending crisscross of vines. The two saurs, despite dangling and tottering in midair, remain singularly focused on swinging over to gobble up the girl -- time and time again. Visually interesting, but done to death. And it made no sense they'd be thinking about a meal at such a time.

A few other problem scenes. The capture of Kong made no sense. They blew the initial attempt, and followed up with something even more ludicrous, yet it worked. This also occurred elsewhere, such that Kong's abilities changed according to plot needs. Likewise, at times the people were in dire straits on the island (everything in sight trying to eat them), but then they were completely unaccosted at other times.

Jack Black was criticized by critics for his perpetually arched eyebrows. I like Jack Black, and in the early going he did a fine job. But by movie's end I hated his guts. And I have to question his acting range -- due to his perpetually arched eyebrows.


In conclusion, I know that animation sequences are very expensive and involve lots of people. But if such a sequence doesn't fit the movie, toss it (or just include it as an extra on the DVD). In writing, there's a saying: "Kill your darlings." It's not easy to do sometimes. But even if a sentence or scene is cool, or took you a lot of effort, if it detracts from the story, you gotta axe it.

--cranefly

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Everything Cranefly said about Kong is True except for the part where he doesn't know his hat from a hole in the ground.

Yes, the film was overly self indulgent. But who can say to the man who made three films that grossed over two billion dollars? At times I was amazed that some scenes ran too long, ie the aforementioned Brontosaurus scene. And we were in the spider pit for weeks. But wasn't Andy Serkis's death great?

When I read the reviews and found out I wasn't going to see Kong for almost forty minutes into the film, I thought those scenes were going to drag. But I was swept up. I loved the movie within the movie stuff. I loved where the put the writer. I loved the male lead looking at the posters in his state room. He took his part and gave it some dimension.

My only regret was Kong left the island. I was screaming that he shouldn't go after that woman. I knew where this was headed and it wasn't going to be good. As soon as we got to the let's trap Kong sequence, I became depressed because I knew the let's kill Kong sequence wasn't far behind.

[cranefly]

Interesting. I had the same reaction. As the "capture Kong" scene loomed, I actually looked away from the screen, off into the darkness, thinking, "I'd like to get up and walk out right now."

Because from that point onward it's a downer. I knew it would be, and it was worse than I anticipated -- much worse than in the original, because this version yanked the emotion button a lot harder (that is NOT a mixed metaphor!). Yeah, I have no interest in seeing it again, because it leaves you feeling ill.

I've read reports that people don't want to see it again because it burned them out with all the special effects. I think that statement represents a lack of communication ability in a lot of people. Because it wasn't special effects that killed Kong. It was beauty.

What the hell am I saying? What I meant to say is that the culprit was overlong repetitious scenes where the imagination went bankrupt. The bugs and stuff were great. You don't burn out from scenes like those.

Though when the millipedes made their advances on the woman, my arm took such a beating from Lady Cranefly (she began to whine in a horrific way, rising in pitch, pounding my flesh ever harder). And the Andy Serkis death scene evoked a similar reaction.

My arm is slowly healing.


--cranefly

[Haggis Killer]

I'm not far off from complete agreement from the above, but I must say I reserve my largest annoyance bill for Jack Black. I totally believed he was a shyster film maker, but I never for a minute believed he was a shyster film maker who really, really wanted to "get that shot" somewhere in the back of beyond. What the hell was he doing, actually trying to go someplace unknown? He didn't have an exploratory bone in his body. And I checked, ladies & gentlemen.

Oh, and ice skating princess kong just about made me throw up. And the beauty standing on top of the goddam Empire State building and her hair wasn't even getting blown around. Not to mention she's in an evening gown, the top of which never once shows any cleavage. And I checked, ladies and gentlemen. I mean, she's up there on top, the very, very top, right? I'll tell you what, the top of that building'll freeze your whatsit off on a warm day, not to mention the middle o' freakin' winter, ok? The wind whips over the observation post and makes you glad you're caged in for fear of going off the rim. And she's up climbing on top of the thing and not even getting a blustery sense of where the heck she is - even after the monkey takes a dive? Suspension of Disbelief O-Meter is flatlined.

Overindulgent? Sure. But Kong fights 3 freakin' T-rex's with one hand full of babe and holds his own. And I know it's in the trailer, but leaping up to swat the biplane? That's badass.

Kong was awesome. Sure, I don't need to see it again. But it was awesome. He should get a talk show out of it, at least. He could give Space Ghost a run for his money.

[The Queen]

I like the fact that this wasn't horny Kong, as in the DiLaurentis debacle -- I mean, that was just stupid and frankly, creepy. (More boobies, yes, but creepy.)

In this one, it was clear that she was a favorite new toy -- possibly a better quality toy than the ones he'd previously broken. Kong was with Naomi kind of like the way our Cuchulain is with his squeaky squirrel. When it was brand new, he was clearly willing and eager to tear Preston to pieces to keep him away from that squirrel.

And that's why I'm sure that if only Kong and Naomi had stayed in the jungle a little longer, he would have gotten bored and been more than happy to let Adrian Brody take her away.

It wasn't beauty that killed the beast: it was new toy obsession. Remember that, boys, as you open Xmas gifts this year.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

I kind of liked Jack Black. He certainly wasn't horrible. The problem was in the missed motivation. He came across as someone who loved money, not someone who loved film. Which was why it was partially unbelievable that he was out in the desperate jungle trying to take money shots.

And how many of us recognized Tom Hanks son Colin in the movie. I didn't. But I read a review and they mentioned that fact. Tom wrote to Colin saying as a father, I'm very proud of you. As a fellow actor, I'm jealous as hell.

Another thing I noticed during the scene atop the empire state building was the fact that Ann Darrow had her Gravitmetric Electoric soled shoes to help magnetize her to the top of the building. She also wore her carbon fibre dress that only changes shape under extreme conditions. I particulary like the use of Ceramacrete Mousse to keep her tresses in that stylish coife.


Where do we go for more apes? It didn't look like there were any sons of Kong around for a happy go lucky sequel. If there was, we should get him a snowboard to capture the youth market.

[cranefly]

At this juncture I feel it is important to waste everyone's time with some hard science -- you know, in the vein of "The Physics of Star Trek."

The Siberian tiger is the largest of the cat species and can weigh up to 800 pounds. It is known to occupy a territory of up to 4000 square miles per tiger. This is because it takes a lot foliage to support the herbivores that the top predators feed upon.

T-Rex, by comparison, weighs in at around 15,000 pounds. So a single T-Rex would need a land area of, conservatively, 15 X 4000 = 60,000 square miles. In this movie, we saw 3 T-Rexes and at least 2 more top carnivores, ignoring the smaller raptors (King Kong is a herbivore, so he doesn't factor in). These 5 top carnivores, by themselves, would require a land mass of 300,000 square miles.

That's over 500 miles by 500 miles.

If you assume a lot more predators and scale it up accordingly, we're talking about a substantial island.

What a remarkable stroke of bad luck for Kong and beauty to encounter five top predators within a few hundred yards of each other.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled brainwaves.

--cranefly

P.S. I totally agree about Jack Black's obsession with money. If instead his obsession had been filmmaking (the previews actually presented him in this way), he would have come across far better, improving the movie dramatically. As it stands, I was angry and resentful when Jack Black got to stand over Kong at the end and explain to everyone what actually killed him. Because by that point Jack Black wasn't qualified to feed a millipede.