Does every Kong thread on this fucking message board have to put up with Ahmed vs. BKB arguments?

PLUS




Sorry, but that discredits the review

I think I may only read respected reviews from now on... such as Dr. Lecter and bABA...

Lecter,

At least I didn't completely pan it, but seriously, the only good thing about it was Watts and Brody who actually had very good chemistry on screen. Otherwise it was such a waste of time. The CGI was incredible, but so overused it completely lost any sense of reality or credibility.

My problem was that Jackson was trying for a darker, more emotional King Kong, but then he uses all of these long, drawn-out CGI scenes, which were no doubt amazing, but completely discredited the remainder of the film.

As I said, full review will be up tonight.

I completely disagree. CGI was used a lot yes, but it didn't bother the emotional scenes in any way, for me.

Jackson wants us to go from being awestruck by these fairly impressive CGI scenes, where as a viewer we must completely suspend any disbelief, and then go into a deep emotional mode as the ape and the human romance each other.

I realized the movie was a complete waste of time about half-way through the 15 minutes long T-Rex chase. Impressive? Sure. Jaw-dropping? Somewhat. Completely over-done? In every sense of the matter.

It just seemed to me like Jackson wanted a more serious King Kong, and that is an ambitious goal, but he stepped to far out of reality for it to work.

I'll stick with my grade of C for now.

Jeff hates a lot of films I love, so I'm really not surprised at all. His taste is very different than mine, so I'm good.

The fact that Lecter actually likes this film means leaps and bounds, because I know myself he was never a big Lord of the Rings fan.

PEACE, Mike.

i think the sheer length of he scene and the fact that you think its overdone ... is not surprising. but personally, i understand why it was like that. the fact that the entire battle was so long and so brutal was to show kong's commitment to saving Ann's life. Sure, he could have just beaten them up and that would be the end but Ann would probably breathe a sigh of relief. things change when you make it look like you risked your own life and went waaay out of the way to save someone. I think that was the entire purpose of the scene. It allowed Ann to see what Kong was doing for her so that the story could continue

Actually none of the LOTR movies ever made my #1 of the year, heh. ROTK made my #2 of 2003 and I consider it better than King Kong. Then again, I think ROTK is a masterpiece.

I would definitely put it above FOTR, as that one barely made my Top 10 of 2001. I would put it on par or slightly above TTT which made my Top 5 of 2002.

I would probably rank them this way:

1. ROTK - 9.5/10
2. King Kong - 9 or 9.5/10 (I will see it again in theatres soon to decide)
3. TTT - 9/10
4. FOTR - 8/10

bABA, I can see what you mean. Maybe that is the case, but it just felt that Jackson got stuck between fleshing out the storyline between Anne and Kong and these grand CGI battle scenes. The entire film was in limbo to me, on one hand it was a richly made, fantastic adventure film. In fact, for about the first hour I was about to give it an A, maybe even an A+, it was that good. Once it got to "the island" though, it just fell apart for me.

Kong is, by nature, an over-the-top, creature feature type of film. That is fine. Leave it that way and just re-invision it. Don't try to add this dark, emotional value to it, because it doesn't work like that. It reminded me of all the old 1980's and earlier "monster" films with the scientist screaming "maybe we can learn from them..." etc. I just wish he would have taken one approach and stuck to it. Over-the-top, somewhat tongue-in-cheek would have worked brilliantly for it. Dark and emotional would have to. Instead he chose a hybrid version and it just didn't work, for me at least.

Such as...?

By the way, I loved Titanic. So we agree on that.

And I enjoyed the first Lord of the Rings immensly. The second was good, but not as good. The third was where Jackson went wrong in my book. Still a great film though.

Oh yeah, and I went in to the film expecting to be blown away by how good it was going to be. I had no bias going in as far as disliking it.

Ah, okay, then I understand. Mine is the reversed order.

My Lord of the Rings grades would be:

Fellowship of the Ring -- 9.0/10 -- A

I felt this was the best, it had such a personal story and it felt so much more emotionally moving to me.

The Two Towers -- 8.5/10 -- A-

The middle is always a difficult film to make so this film gets credit for that. It was always interesting, and very well made. It wasn't quite as exciting as the first or third, but overall still an amazing film.

Return of the King -- 8.0/10 -- A-

Still an amazing film, and nearly a masterpiece. While in some respects I did not like the film as it felt "too grand", it was still an amazing film on nearly every level. It just felt, to me, like the personal story was missing from it this time around. And of course, the excessive "endings" didn't help.

If you include the "extended editions", FoTR still gets an A, TTT gets an A as well, but RoTK gets a B- from me. It was too excessive and overdrawn. Just my opinion.

well it is important to remember that not everyone is 1 dimentional. kong is more than that. hes pretty much a pissed off underloved soul whos fending off for himself in a huge jungle. showing just one part of his character by just showing the emotions or just showing his brutality would be wrong .. at least to me.

I was not trying to imply any bias whatsoever. I've always known you have a much different taste in films than me, just looking over your reviews over time, etc. I'm not gonna hold your taste against you, haha.

PEACE, Mike.

And that aside how AMAZINGLY COOL was Kong finishing off the last T-Rex actually? I mean, Wow!

But he is an ape. And no matter how realistic his face is, no matter how amazing the CGI is, he is an animal. He is incapable of showing human emotions. Whether or not he feels emotions is one thing, but it almost felt as if Jackson was trying to place a human emotion on Kong and it didn't work.

PETA would not like you... nope...

EXCUSE ME??? You're kidding me right?

and even if you're not and even if the facts support what you say:

He is a 25 feet tall dino killing ape. they don't exist. who knows what they're capable of and what they're not. thats why ann was so shocked at what happened.

See, once again that is why I had so many issues with the film. Jackson could not find a balance between everything. He wanted us to feel emotional connection to Kong, as well as the other characters, he created this visually deep and well produced film that was very realistic. The sets were amazing, the CGI top notch, the acting incredible etc. On the other hand the viewer is bombarded with these fantasy sequences that are so ridiculously over the top that it sort of nulls the realism seen earlier. He kept jumping back and forth between realism and fantasy. I applaud him for what he tried to do, which was to create a more mature and serious Kong, but I have to say it just doesn't work in the end. Sure it is an entertaining film, but as filmmaking it really isn't that great.

King Kong was a mixed bag for me. The first half was extremely boring, but the second half (when Kong finally shows up) had some of the best action I've ever seen. I found Jack Black to be very annoying and Watts was good but definately not Oscar worthy. The entire second half really was one of the greatest movie experiences in a long time. B+

Wait, since when can fantasy and realism not coexist peacefully (yknow what I mean). Its a fiction film, after all...if Jackson can manage to make such fantastical stuff seem real, and mixes all this real beauty and emotion with over the top, never-gonna-happen dino vs gaint ape fight fantasy, I say more power to him. That's what I WANT to see--over the top fantasy displayed realisticly. So I should love it.

I'll just rate Peter Jackson's four "big movies."

1. The Return of the King 10/10)
2. The Fellowship of the Ring 10/10
3. The Two Towers 9/10
4. King Kong 9/10

As you can see, I'm a fan.

its one of those thing and i guess atleast in my case rogue and i won't see eye to eye.

For me, when a fantasy element is introduced, everything that still exists in reality should still act in a realistic manner. The fantasy can be anyway you wish it to be. Finally, the interactions between what is fantasy (in this case, Skull island and its inhabitants) and what is reality (the crew and new york) should be how you preceive such a situaiton to turn out to be.

you cannot go ocmpletely fantasy cause that is shit. You cannot go all realistic cause that won't make sense. it must be a mixture of both. hence, i love films like these. I guess Rogue is the opposite.

I don't get your criticism here. It's not like Kong was ready to start a life with Ann, raise a family, etc. The way I see it, Ann was for Kong a source of soothing, a source of beauty. Ann has brought Kong calmness and well-being, something he proabbly hasn't felt for the longest time, on an island where it's everyone against everyone.

Ann has the same effect on Kong as a beautiful painting or a beautiful landscape has on us.