This shamefully bloated self-indulgent work by Peter Jackson illustrates what is so bad about modern day films and what is so great about old movies.
The original Kong, my favorite film of all time, got into and got out of the story in lightning fashion, with excitement to spare and no flat parts.
The new one just lingers like a huge wart on the screen. I can't tell you how contemptuous I am of this film. Whether it's Jack Black (is that his real name?) non-stop mugging -- was he on drugs? "Ann Darrow's" "heartbreaking relationship" with the ape: is the vaudevillian juggling going to add any insight to this? And of course the gag-a-minute appearance of Adian Brody, who is the effeminate Jack Driscoll. The eye-rolling natives, the PC multi-national crew, there were so many flat spots here. I had to laugh when Ann Darrow magically appeared in Manhattan, in silhouette, to reunite with Kong.
The CG effects were good but it took way too long to get there. It seems the director Peter Jackson is much more comfortable with the CG monsters than making any kind of human interest story. It looks like his set building of NY in the thirties in New Zealand was a calculated move to attract more filming to NZ. That's pretty much what this film was, a power play.
I was actually hoping for a comet to destroy the earth at the end of the picture. That might have saved it. But the whole experience just showed what a superior work of art the original Kong is, and how everything now, at least 99 percent, is just dumbed-down, watered down slop for the masses.
The original Kong, my favorite film of all time, got into and got out of the story in lightning fashion, with excitement to spare and no flat parts.
The new one just lingers like a huge wart on the screen. I can't tell you how contemptuous I am of this film. Whether it's Jack Black (is that his real name?) non-stop mugging -- was he on drugs? "Ann Darrow's" "heartbreaking relationship" with the ape: is the vaudevillian juggling going to add any insight to this? And of course the gag-a-minute appearance of Adian Brody, who is the effeminate Jack Driscoll. The eye-rolling natives, the PC multi-national crew, there were so many flat spots here. I had to laugh when Ann Darrow magically appeared in Manhattan, in silhouette, to reunite with Kong.
The CG effects were good but it took way too long to get there. It seems the director Peter Jackson is much more comfortable with the CG monsters than making any kind of human interest story. It looks like his set building of NY in the thirties in New Zealand was a calculated move to attract more filming to NZ. That's pretty much what this film was, a power play.
I was actually hoping for a comet to destroy the earth at the end of the picture. That might have saved it. But the whole experience just showed what a superior work of art the original Kong is, and how everything now, at least 99 percent, is just dumbed-down, watered down slop for the masses.