Overall Rating: ****
King Kong @ IMDB
Synopsis:
Retelling of the classic action film from the 30’s. This time the big ape gets a face lift with 20th century effects and script that’s a lot longer than the last one. When an ambitious movie director, Carl Denham (Jack Black), gets in trouble with the studios, he’s forced to rush his trip to a lost island filled with mystery. He convinces an aspiring actress Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) and the famous writer, Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody) to join him as he heads towards the unknown. What they find on the uncharted island is a lost world and one hairy ape.
Review:
This one is a tough one. I really struggled with how many stars to give this movie. King Kong is a classic. You have to do it right and I’ll be honest. I don’t know if Peter Jackson got it right this time. This movie was long! Three hours and seven minutes long! It was all good stuff. But was it all really necessary?
I’m assuming most folks know the basic plot. It took over an hour to get to Skull Island and find Kong. You then spend about an hour on the island. The final hour is in New York. Of course, the most fun in the movie is during the middle, on Skull Island. That one hour is non-stop action. You don’t rest from the minute they set foot on the island to the moment they capture Kong. There are some slight luls, but they are very very short. The effects are solid, from monster bugs, giant dinos, and spectacular scenery. But as amazing as it was, I think Jackson made a mistake here. He set out to wow the audience and he did that, but its during these sequences you kind of lose the focus of the movie. Everyone in the theatre starts waiting for the next big creature or the next amazing effects shot. Don’t get me wrong, like I said before, I had fun watching the sequences. But the truth is, you don’t need special effects to tell a good story.
The writing and general plot were good. I think that the plot could have been seriously trimmed, both in the beginning and middle of the movie. I think the ending in New York was just about right. There wasn’t too much dialog that was cheesey, so I give them credit for that. One thing that I noticed was they tried to add subplots, for example the young boy on the ship, Jimmy (Jamie Bell) has a mysterious past. He started on the ship as a stow-away. Now, why tell the audience that when we won’t find out his subplot by the end of the movie? There are more, but I won’t list them here.
The acting was pretty good. Black did a great job, considering this is the first serious role I’ve ever seen him play. He was well suited for the part. Adrien Brody was excellent as always. I must admit, I even thought Naomi Watts did a good job, and I don’t consider her that great of an actress. The supporting cast was good also, especially Thomas Kretschmann who plays Captain Englehorn.
Overall, a good movie. I recommend you go see it at the theatre if for nothing else but the cinematic experience. This film is a little too big to get any justice from the small screen. But it is not without its faults. If you do see it, go for a matinee and don’t drink too much, its a long one.