King Kong is a gigantic mess

My wife Catherine has written an excellent review of Peter Jackson’s King Kong, which we saw just last night. I concur with it; the movie is a meandering, flabby, over-long, self-indulgent mess that will be deeply disappointing to many of the fans Jackson attracted with the Rings movies. I hope it bombs, and he learns a lesson about artistic discipline. His next movie would be better for that.

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7 comments

  1. A friend of mine saw it, and thinks it’s a worthwhile picture to see. His acclaim focuses on physical momentum; he describes the flick as “truly newtonian”.

    Eric, compared to your recent highly favorable piece on Attack Vector: Tactical, where you especially noted realistic physics, I’m curious about two things:

    First, what do you think of the “momentum”, purely physically speaking, of the movie?

    Second, if you recognize the same “experience of momentum” my friend talked about, why did this fail to impress your geek side?

  2. The physics in King Kong didn’t strike me either way, either as especially realistic or especially fake.

    Of course there is the square-cube scaling problem that a 25-foot-tall silverback would be barely able to move without breaking its own legs. But you have to sort of accept that as a McGuffin.

  3. I saw it, I enjoyed it.

    They got a lot ofmileage out of the lead acress’ ability to open her eyes very wide.

    I think it could’ve been shorter, but I don’t think it’s a mess. Some scenes are just gorgeous and work very well.

  4. >They got a lot ofmileage out of the lead acress’ ability to open her eyes very wide.

    Heh. When that’s one of the best things that can be said about a movie, you know
    it’s a stinkeroo.

  5. Eh. What Jackson needs to do is make BAD TASTE II where Derek returns to Earth with a space fleet composed of several very pissed off alien races hot on his tail.

    I liked KONG, but neither LOTR or HEAVENLY CREATURES fooled me into thinking he was some sort of cinematic asrtiste just dying to impress the world with weighty cinema filled with grand themes. He’s exactly what I pegged him as on that first viewing of TASTE: a film geek of blistering talent and a love for goofy, violent, kinetic roller-coaster rides.

  6. This movie left alot to be desired as far to be entertaining to movie die hards and laymen alike this movie sucked! from a story standpoint and the cgi standpoint it was very dissapointing and would expect more from an oscar, winner! please for your sake and ours dont make any more money grubbing films and stick to the art you seem to succed in, thanks but no thanks for this feeble effort Johnny t

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