December 6, 2005

[sneak preview: king kong] ^{4:35 AM}

Want a review with words?

So how was it? I say the movie gets 2 stars, Naomi and the Gorilla team at WETA get 4 stars.

Naomi Watts Emotionally carries a film based on a blue screen and tentpoles, something George Lucas was never able to get out of his actors.

Jack Black Exactly what you are expecting, so he does nothing to expectations but meet them.

Adrian Brody He is not a romantic leading man. He is not an action hero. Why is he here?

Kong Astounding. Kudos to Andy and the effects team but ...

Visual Effects some, like Kong and 1933 New York are astounding, but Skull Island wreaks of miniatures and the matteing/blue screen work, for a film of this calibre, is horrible at times. We're talking TV-miniseries bad. Methinks someone could have benefitted from two more months of post-production.

The Score Ditching Howard Shore for James Newton Howard? Probably an amazingly smart move, since the combination of Kong, Watts and the score give the film its heart. The three combined achieve true cinematic beauty, and evoked waterworks from every woman I could see.

The Story 3 hours is stretching a parable pretty far, but it does tend to zip by, especially once you hit the island, which contains some actual scares. I don't know if I'll ever watch the entire movie again, and if I do, I wonder which set pieces I'll be looking forward to the most.

The Natives during the Skull Island Native sequence, Jackson resorts to hokey jerky faux-slow-motion, which one can infer is his version of Kill Bill's black and white stretch in the House of Blue Leaves. There's some seriously creepy stuff going on here, and I'm sure the MPAA and Universal weren't too keen on traumatizing children for life. That sort of thing is left to the local news.

The Spider Pit Sequence a plot point cut from the original film for being too scary, is reinstated here, and it's truely horrifying. It contains the scariest death I have ever seen on film.

Kong vs. the V-Rexes Why they're calle V-Rexes, I don't know. But they are, and they rule. He fights 3 of them at once, and for at least a year it will be the scene you will use to demonstrate your home theater system.

The Final Word Should it have been remade? Maybe. I contend that, apart from being trimmed, it could not be a better film, nor could it have a better director. Peter Jackson has given an attention for detail and a passion that one would be hard pressed to match, but giving your all for 3 hours is hard. For all my annoyances at Black and Brodey, it's their characters that have no real place in the film, other than to propel us towards the island and provide monster-food. People who are speculating that this a is a best picture nominee are sorely mistaken.

The resonating power of Kong, the original, is that it is a parable told in monumental imagery, where the obstacles are large, looming, and universal. It doesn't need to be three hours, and in fact, the story shouldn't even require dialogue. Just moving pictures, music, and eyes that make you believe in a soul.

Upon leaving the theatre I said "If I were 12 years old, I would become obsessed with this." Which I've been saying a lot latey. "If I were ___ years old, I would ________ with this movie." But you know what? I'm not _______ years old. I'm 24, and I want a movie that delivers to both my inner child and my ... adult child. The only thing in recent memory that does this is The Incredibles.

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