An ambitious remake by our beloved Peter Jackson to remake the move that made him want to make movies in the first place, and it was everything you could want. Not only for the fact that it’s ridiculously entertaining, it’s just a great movie, who’s only real downfall is its length (which is a short 200 minutes, but a lot of people will feel it hard to sit through before seeing it, and therefore wait to rent). Even though it is a very long movie, I don’t know if I’d want it to be any shorter. I’m sure some people will complain about the length of some of the action sequences, but I didn’t really mind. There are moments when you can tell that the special effects have kicked in (mainly in the animations of the human characters), but like when you notice it in Lord of the Rings, you forgive it and move on, because it’s just a good movie. Whereas those same moments in Matrix Reloaded make you go “Oh great, I’m in a video game now” and it’s harder to forgive because the movie just isn’t as good.
I especially love how Kong himself had such a distinct personality, and Jackson really used facial expressions with him a lot, but not to the point that it’s just cheesy and dumb looking. Creating Kong as such really makes the tragic love story come to life. It was also fun to hear the entire movie theater squirm during the part with the bugs, and I wonder if Peter Jackson was just chuckling to himself when he heard that. I’m really not sure what else to say. It’s just a genuinely enjoyable movie, and everything a popcorn movie should be. Nowadays with Doom, Fantastic Four, and Spiderman, it seems so hard to find a popcorn movie that is also a well made movie. This is one.
Overall Rating: 4.25
Oh man I was wishing this movie was better than it was. There were three major flaws that
greatly diminished the enjoyment I could take in this movie.
***WARNING THIS DISCUSSES SPECIFIC PLOT POINTS*****
#1. The love interest in this movie is SOOO under-developed that they should have either completely removed it or removed another sub-plot to devote to it. It goes from awkward first meeting to “I love you and am writting you a comedy” in about 2 minutes.
#2. The sub-plot that could have been completely removed and was entirely outside of the spirit of the original was the seasoned leader sailor guy looking out for the young inexperienced sailor.
Everytime they spent time on this I was cringing.
#3. Ko Ko the ape knows SIGN LANGUAGE!!! The touching moment that could have went completely unspoken and completely deflated the end of the movie for me was the preposterous “Ann communicated the idea of a beautiful view to Kong”. I was worried about not wanting to see the big ape get gunned down at the end but I was ready for it after seeing that whole thing.
Morgan, you know how completely I was looking forward to this and it is probably a time when my expectations exceeded what could realistically happen.
Just to balance the post:
#1 Andy Serkis as Lumpy the Cook stole every scene he was in.
#2. Kong looked fantastic (probably thanks to Andy S)
#3. Naomi Watts is easy to watch do anything (although I read today that she can’t juggle, that she pantomimed it and they added digital rocks!)
Go freaking Bears go, I watched an entire NFL game for about the 3rd time this year when they ate Michael Vick alive and Rex finally got in. It was a good pre-holiday weekend!!
Ryan