King Kong: The Movie
Went and saw the ultra-way-too-long monkey flick. I give it a C-/D+. The movie is mostly hurt by being way too long. And I mean way.
Kong looks good. The dinosaurs look good. The pointless Jurrasic Park footage does nothing to advance the plot and should have been left almost all on the cutting room floor. The stampeding brontosaurus' (aptosaurus?) through the "game trail" was kinda cool, except for the gaping plot hole of "if this is a game trail for thundering herds of gigantic beasts, why is crumbling away this time they run down it?"
So I ask again, what does the stampede have to do with the film? Answer: nothing. This is a three-hour-plus movie, so it certainly doesn't need this kind of padding. Plus some of the Jack Black running scenes were exceptionally poorly integrated with the special effects.
Then the giant bug sequence. At least this serves as a plot device for the self-serving action-hero actor to actually become an action hero when he insists to the ship captain that they must go back and rescue the others. (Plot hole: the others didn't need rescuing when action-hero-boy went back to the ship.) Again, the giant bugs scene could have been one-third to one-quarter the length and still provided the desired plot advancements.
And then the final scene with Kong and Ann Darrow at the top of the Empire State Building. Once again way too long. If the movie is lacking time-wise and needs filler, maybe you fill it here. But this 3+ hours, so I think you can wrap up the ending quite a bit faster and not lose anything.
Here's a major nit of mine: Kong is clinging to the top of the Empire State Building, up at the very top. He is resting his weary head on the very top and clutching the building as he is slowly succumbing to his 50-caliber wounds. The final salvo shoots him in the back and does him in, so he slowly lets his grip go and slides down the side of the building. Cut to a top-down view. The ape is now 20 feet away from the building in a free fall headed for the ground.
Hang on, now. He should be bumping into the side of the building all the way down! Probably knocking off chunks of concrete as he goes.
I guess the director thought the free-fall was more dramatic.
I think this movie was a solid C+ if it would've been trimmed to 2 hours.
Kong looks good. The dinosaurs look good. The pointless Jurrasic Park footage does nothing to advance the plot and should have been left almost all on the cutting room floor. The stampeding brontosaurus' (aptosaurus?) through the "game trail" was kinda cool, except for the gaping plot hole of "if this is a game trail for thundering herds of gigantic beasts, why is crumbling away this time they run down it?"
So I ask again, what does the stampede have to do with the film? Answer: nothing. This is a three-hour-plus movie, so it certainly doesn't need this kind of padding. Plus some of the Jack Black running scenes were exceptionally poorly integrated with the special effects.
Then the giant bug sequence. At least this serves as a plot device for the self-serving action-hero actor to actually become an action hero when he insists to the ship captain that they must go back and rescue the others. (Plot hole: the others didn't need rescuing when action-hero-boy went back to the ship.) Again, the giant bugs scene could have been one-third to one-quarter the length and still provided the desired plot advancements.
And then the final scene with Kong and Ann Darrow at the top of the Empire State Building. Once again way too long. If the movie is lacking time-wise and needs filler, maybe you fill it here. But this 3+ hours, so I think you can wrap up the ending quite a bit faster and not lose anything.
Here's a major nit of mine: Kong is clinging to the top of the Empire State Building, up at the very top. He is resting his weary head on the very top and clutching the building as he is slowly succumbing to his 50-caliber wounds. The final salvo shoots him in the back and does him in, so he slowly lets his grip go and slides down the side of the building. Cut to a top-down view. The ape is now 20 feet away from the building in a free fall headed for the ground.
Hang on, now. He should be bumping into the side of the building all the way down! Probably knocking off chunks of concrete as he goes.
I guess the director thought the free-fall was more dramatic.
I think this movie was a solid C+ if it would've been trimmed to 2 hours.
posted by Rhett in SoCal at 12:51 PM
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