I had hoped that Kong would live up to my expectations and take its place as my pick for the best film of 2005, but the film fails for more often than it succeeds, and I suspect it's the viewer's ability to overlook (or ignore) these failures that will determine whether they'll enjoy Peter Jackson's "epic" remake. It's quite easy to name the two aspects of the production that work: Kong himself is a superbly designed and animated CGI creation, and Naomi Watts has such luminous charm that she steals the vast majority of the scenes she's in. The first few quiet moments that Kong and Ann spend together are easily the best in the film and in theory the strength of both Kong and Watts' performances should be all you need to "buy into" the film; the faults managed to alienate me to such an extent that by the time the action moved to New York, I wanted the film to be over. The faults are numerous and significant. Kong aside, a large chunk of the CGI (or rather the CGI/Live action composite) is very poor; the initial dinosaur stampede is some of the worst blue-screen I've seen in recent years, with no sense of interaction between the dinosaurs and the human actors that they're supposedly nearly trampling. The Kong vs T-Rex (x3) fight is too long, and while the vine sequence is briefly entertaining, it's an over-the-top CGI roller-coaster with no emotional impact what-so-ever. The fabled "spider cave" sequence feels out of place – it's so dark and in your face that on reflection it only serves to slow down the action, and kill off another couple of characters. By the time we reach New York, so much bad CGI, dialogue, and acting has littered the screen that I was completely disengaged. And what of the other actors? Jack Black doesn't cope very well with the duties he's called upon to perform, and is seemingly incapable of delivering any of his lines with any sincerity (including the final line of the film). Adrien Brody (equipped with a face I could never tire of smacking) essentially sleepwalks his way through the film, perhaps aware that he is as pointless as the tacky CGI velociraptors. The numerous disposable crew members do no more than slow down the action, and whoever dreamt up Billy Elliot's terrible Heart Of Darkness sub-plot should be shot – "It's not an adventure story, is it?" "No Jimmy, it's a tedious, overlong CGI indulgence". Much has been said about the films "massive" three hour duration. I would argue that a great deal of the film's content could and should have been left on the cutting room floor (or, more accurately, relegated to the back of a hard disk somewhere), and that I would have been far more involved as a result. Final thoughts? A massive let-down – perhaps I'll come back to Kong on DVD and enjoy it significantly more than I did in the cinema, given that my expectations will be suitably lower. Perhaps, in the comfort of my own home, I'll be drawn in a little more. As it stands right now, this is a long way away from being film of the year.
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I disagree. Yes, it’s overlong, parts of the dialogue are unbelievably clunky (which I suppose is true to the spirit of the original) and some of the CGI is poor, but I think the film succeeds in the one area it needs to to create emotional involvement in the main story – which is the relationship between Ann and Kong. It’s a huge tribute to the acting skills of Naomi Watts that what could so easily have tipped over into the ridiculous becomes almost unbearably moving by the close of the film. Watts is totally convincing and Kong is such a lifelike creation that I had no difficulty in accepting that they could come to feel such affection for one another. The poor CGI sticks out all the more because Kong is such a flawless creation, but the emotional content of the film is such that I’m prepared to forgive it.
As to the rest of the cast – they really don’t matter. Jack Black acquits himself fairly well (although I agree he doesn’t do too well with the final line), Brody gets better as the film goes on, and no-one else apart from Andy Serkis makes much of an impact.
Overall though, I have to chalk this one up as one more success for Peter Jackson because it brings back the childlike sense of wonder I haven’t felt at the cinema for many years. The images of Ann and Kong watching the sunrise together from the top of the Empire State Building and skating in Central Park will stay with me for a long time.
I disagree, not only was the movie far too long, it had no emotion at all, I really did not care at all when Kong died, in fact I was in the whole ’sooner he dies the better, someone give those planes some am-ram’s to speed this scene up’.
Naomi is the only one in the movie that pulled off any sort of performance (and even her performance was cringe worthy at times). Kong looked good for the most part (if too human in some parts), however when in scenes with real people looked out of place (as did all the CGI for that matter).
Weta have proved ILM right when they said that LOTR was not challenging enough a project to compare it and star wars. Now that Weta have done a large blue/green screen project ILM’s work on SW 1/2/3 looks brilliant.
Even though I am a PJ fan his direction leaves a lot to be desired on this project, yes I know it’s his ‘pet’ project and as such he has done a ‘George Lucas’ on it, but not his best work that is for sure.
Likewise I like Jack Black in most everything he has done previous (and looking forward to the new D movie), but I think he should stick to comedy.
Adrien Brody put across a very normal performance, but is one of the better parts of the movie as he is actually believable at least.
The script is quite true to the original (and better) 1933 original, however to be fair the world has moved on and we expect a little more from our movies now, PJ proved that changing to story does not ruin the whole story in the LOTR trilogy, so why not on this one?
Talking of the original PJ should have kept it’s original 100 minute runtime as 3 hours is just too long on a story with so little substance (Disney did it in 80 minutes in Beauty and the Beast).
Yes you should go see it and make your own opinion, but do not take the critics word for it and go in with an open mind, remember many of the best movies of the year have been the ones that have not been hyped to death.
[...] So, sorry Peter, this movie is officially now ranked as a turd along side Batman and Robin. For another opinion on the Pong (sorry Kong) subject check out Dan’s review. [...]