King Kong

Yet another more than 3 hour long movie by Mr. Peter Jackson. This time it was retelling the story of a savage beast being tamed by a beauty. I hoped he would be making The Hobbit, instead we get King Kong. Oh well.

We start off the movie, if I can remember that far back, with a look at New York City during the Great Depression where there is a struggling, out of work actress Ann Darrow, played by Naomi Watts, and a producer, Carl Denham (Jack Black) that will do anything to make his movie. 'Anything' being ignoring his backers, setting off in a boat which hasn't been paid for, avoiding  the police by taking off in said boat, kidnapping the script writer (Adrien Brody) to finish the script by not letting him off the aforementioned boat, ignoring obvious signs of danger so on and so forth. So Carl's lead actress pulls out and he has only a few hours to get another one. Enter Ann. She agrees and they're off for 'Singapore' a.k.a. Skull Island. On the ship we meet many characters, none of them very important, yet they are interesting. I wish they bothered to write a bit more into Jimmy's (Jamie Bell) past. It was kind of annoying to start off with  "I found him four years ago, wilder than any animal here ..." and then stop. You can't just leave it hanging like that! Either explain it more, have it become some turning point in the film, or don't put it in at all.

Anyway. They land on island after filming on the ship, Ann and the writer, Jack are making googly eyes at each other,. They land on the island that looked as if orcs had just raided and continued to film. The natives are not happy and they decided to sacrifice Ann to the giant ape that lives there. Jack refuses to believe she's dead and they set off into the jungle after the ape.

Instead of eating her the ape starts to fall in love with her and keeps her safe from the dangers of the island. Jack finally finds her and starts to bring her back to the boat. Kong not liking this goes after them and he is captured and brought to New York City where he is put on Broadway. There he goes crazy when a blond is brought out and it isn't Ann.  He breaks lose and causes mayhem. Then, finding Ann, he brings her on top of the Empire State Building where he is attacked by biplanes and eventually is killed protecting Ann.

Okay then, this is going to be weird because this was a very well done movie, but I did not like it.  I know it's a good movie, because the acting is great, the special effects are excellently done, there's nothing choppy in the movie, everything flows well and it is wonderfully directed in most parts. But I did not enjoy this movie.  It wasn't to my taste.

First of all it was so bloody long.  Yes, I know I've sat through all of the Lord of the Rings extended versions and not found them long, but this movie was different. It felt like there were scenes that had been added just to make the movie 3 hours. It still flowed nicely and everything fit together perfectly, but it was SO LONG! At one point, an hour into the movie I was like "correct me if I'm wrong, but there's supposed to be a giant monkey in this movie right?" They hadn't even reached the island yet. I mean the T-Rex scene? Kong fighting off the dinosaurs went on for something like 20 minutes!  Bloody hell, at one point you think it's over only to have them hung by vines and continue to try and eat Ann for another 10 minutes. And there are a whole bunch of scenes that involve Ann bonding with the ape (who knew he liked slapstick comedy). I mean, we get it, there's a connection there. It felt like he was pounding into our heads. And five minutes later, just incase you forgot, there was another one.

There's this wonderful thing called editing. Someone forgot to do it with this movie. There were so many scenes that should've been, well not taking out completely, but edited down. There would've been nothing lost in the film and it wouldn't have been so hard on my butt.

Second, the plot is very unbelievable to me. I don't understand how a giant ape falls in love with a human. I really don't. It's kind of icky.  I understand how animals can love people. I mean my dog loves me, I know she does. You can see it every time I come home and she's waiting by the door with her tail wagging and her toy in her jaws. And I know that there are some animals that will risk their own lives to save their owners. But it felt as if Kong was in love with Ann. Not just loved her, was in love with her. Ewww. If I had to watch them make eyes at each other for any longer I would've been sick. Not that the scenes weren't touching and moving...the first minute. When you spend five to ten minutes cutting back and forth between Ann and Kong, just  staring at each other, I was like, enough already.

If it had just been edited down, I felt that it would've been so much better.

Grade: 7.5/10