Belmit
02-05-2007, 21:56
I only got around to watching this a few months ago having heard mixed reviews for it and couldn't really make my mind up about it at the time. It's only in the last few weeks that I've thought back to the bits that stood out and have come to the conclusion that I didn't like it. I think there's three reasons for this.
Firstly, the story, which is pretty much an inevitability, takes more than three hours to play out. I'm quite happy to sit through more than three hours of film if the story requires it. This really didn't. I mean come on, the story is that a crazy director dupes a writer and an actress into going to a scary island, where the latter gets swiped by a big ape. They spend two hours rescuing her and capturing the giant, then return to New York where the ape escapes and is killed. The original was half the length and told the same story, so what takes up all the extra time? Ah yes!
...the special effects. The dinosaur stampede and Kong fighting the T-Rexes are both awesome scenes. Completely unnecessary but awesome. Unfortunately they seem to crowbar special effects into scenes just for the hell of it, lengthening the film even more. What was the part where half the crew get eaten by mutant vegetation and insects all about? Did they suddenly realise they had ten too many characters surviving the film and needed a way to get rid of them? Just seemed like another way to show off the effects to me.
But I can forgive all that. The film looks great, the music is good, it has great cinematography and some breathtaking action. If they could have condensed it down to sub two hours I might have really enjoyed it. Unfortunately there's just one thing I can't forgive; the last line of the entire film.
I have to set the scene for this one. Jack Black's character is an obnoxious, precocious, smarmy rat with few morals, little regard for human life and a fixation on becoming rich and famous. Having inadvertantly gotten the majority of the people he tricked into coming along to the island killed, he finally manages to catch Kong, dragging the poor beast away from his home to be chained up as a sideshow amusement. The confused Kong escapes, killing countless more people in the process, and is finally shot from the top of the Empire State building by planes. As everyone crowds around the crushed, bullet-riddled corpse of the once mighty ape, having their photos taken with it and smiling, one chap remarks to another that 'the airplanes got him'. Denham (Black's character) looks mournful and, referring to Kong's affections for Naomi Watt's character, says poetically "It wasn't the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast.".
NO IT WASN'T! IT WAS YOU, YOU INSUFFERABLE PRICK! YOU AND YOU ALONE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR NIGH ON EVERY SINGLE DEATH IN THIS OVER-LONG CGI-ATHON. IF EVER THEY DO A SEQUEL FOR THIS I HOPE IT'S THREE HOURS OF THE TRIAL YOU SHOULD BE ATTENDING FOR YOUR CATALOGUE OF BETRAYAL, NEGLIGENCE AND LACK OF MORALITY, FOLLOWED SWIFTLY BY A SENTENCE OF DEATH BY CRUSHING UNDER KING KONG'S MAMMOTH COMPUTER GENERATED DONG. YOU ****ING PLUM.
Yeah, I probably won't watch it again. In fact, I probably shouldn't. :p
Firstly, the story, which is pretty much an inevitability, takes more than three hours to play out. I'm quite happy to sit through more than three hours of film if the story requires it. This really didn't. I mean come on, the story is that a crazy director dupes a writer and an actress into going to a scary island, where the latter gets swiped by a big ape. They spend two hours rescuing her and capturing the giant, then return to New York where the ape escapes and is killed. The original was half the length and told the same story, so what takes up all the extra time? Ah yes!
...the special effects. The dinosaur stampede and Kong fighting the T-Rexes are both awesome scenes. Completely unnecessary but awesome. Unfortunately they seem to crowbar special effects into scenes just for the hell of it, lengthening the film even more. What was the part where half the crew get eaten by mutant vegetation and insects all about? Did they suddenly realise they had ten too many characters surviving the film and needed a way to get rid of them? Just seemed like another way to show off the effects to me.
But I can forgive all that. The film looks great, the music is good, it has great cinematography and some breathtaking action. If they could have condensed it down to sub two hours I might have really enjoyed it. Unfortunately there's just one thing I can't forgive; the last line of the entire film.
I have to set the scene for this one. Jack Black's character is an obnoxious, precocious, smarmy rat with few morals, little regard for human life and a fixation on becoming rich and famous. Having inadvertantly gotten the majority of the people he tricked into coming along to the island killed, he finally manages to catch Kong, dragging the poor beast away from his home to be chained up as a sideshow amusement. The confused Kong escapes, killing countless more people in the process, and is finally shot from the top of the Empire State building by planes. As everyone crowds around the crushed, bullet-riddled corpse of the once mighty ape, having their photos taken with it and smiling, one chap remarks to another that 'the airplanes got him'. Denham (Black's character) looks mournful and, referring to Kong's affections for Naomi Watt's character, says poetically "It wasn't the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast.".
NO IT WASN'T! IT WAS YOU, YOU INSUFFERABLE PRICK! YOU AND YOU ALONE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR NIGH ON EVERY SINGLE DEATH IN THIS OVER-LONG CGI-ATHON. IF EVER THEY DO A SEQUEL FOR THIS I HOPE IT'S THREE HOURS OF THE TRIAL YOU SHOULD BE ATTENDING FOR YOUR CATALOGUE OF BETRAYAL, NEGLIGENCE AND LACK OF MORALITY, FOLLOWED SWIFTLY BY A SENTENCE OF DEATH BY CRUSHING UNDER KING KONG'S MAMMOTH COMPUTER GENERATED DONG. YOU ****ING PLUM.
Yeah, I probably won't watch it again. In fact, I probably shouldn't. :p