12.17.05
REVIEW: King Kong
This movie had so many things in its favor, I’m surprised that I didn’t like it more. Naomi Watts was wonderful (and beautiful). Jack Black was great, although I think he toned down his intensity more than needed. Andy Serkis is probably one of the most talented and underrated actors working today.
Kong himself is a sight to behold. The movement, the hair, the eyes, the anger. He was great. Impressive.
Ultimately, however, the film left me unfulfilled.
Kong is a great character. He was just in a so-so movie.
The main reason the movie failed is because most of the action sequences are so over the top as to defy belief, even in context of the movie.
A raging dinosaur stampede down a narrow gorge, I can accept. The fact that characters were running between their legs for what seeemed to be about 20 minutes without getting even a scratch, I can’t accept. I just couldn’t suspend disbelief that much, and I was not engaged in the story for the rest of film. It just seemed so cartoony at that point. The rest of the film continued in the same vein, so I could never get back into the story.
There’s no need to detail all the over the top stuff, except one: Adrian Brody trying to do anything remotely resembling “Indiana Jones” type of action. He just seemed so miscast as a lead the charge, rescue the maiden in distress type of character. An action hero he is not.
Also, I just happened to have re-watched Jurassic Park a couple weeks ago. I think JP has better dinosaurs than KK even though JP was made over 10 years ago, and that repeat viewings of JP still offers a more engaging story than KK.
The ice skating scene? Please.
I paid full price to see this in the theater on the second day of release, a theater. Until the previews started I had the whole theater to myself. Some people rolled in during the preview. When the lights came up at the end, their were about half a dozen people in the theater.
I really wanted to like this movie. For me, it didn’t deliver. It’s worth a rental, if only to fast-forward to Kong himself.
