It is an animal-human love relationship, and it never pretends that it is more than that. Maybe you don't care for animals and that's why you have trouble here, but trust me, it is possible to love an animal very much, and an animal can become VERY dedicated to its master.

Unless we're talking about a beetle or something.

You know, I always pictured BKB was constantly just "messing around" or having mindless fun on these boards. But this psot of his makes him seem serious.

The thought that he might actually be serious is very, very scary.

Not to mention that gorillas/monkeys/apes are our closest living relative and in some cases are actually more advanced than some humans.......take BKB for instance... .

I'm not messing around and what I've said is in fact TRUE and that Peter Jackson could make the worst movie in the world and the fans will give him a Pass on it..

If you say so Mike, but I think your full of it and like I said: Peter Jackson could make the worst movie in the world with the worst script and the hardcore fans such as yourself and many others will simply give him a free pass on it..

I dunno, man. Sure, there are some people that would grade and film by a particular director highly based on the director's name alone. No doubt. But you're kinda pushing it, I think. In general, KJ has pretty level-headed, fair posters...I'm pretty sure most of us grade based on how good the film is, not who made it...that's RT stuff. Who stars/wrote/directed a film might come into play to a degree (certainly I will enjoy a mediocre movie more if it stars my favorite actor, for example) but really I don't think that's the case here.

I dunno...if you wanna argue this movie sucking and all of us being blinded in some way, argue like the rest of the dissenters are: "You're all just caught up in the hype, of course you will give a big, flashy, long, non-stop action film high grades hours after seeing it. Sooner or later, though, you will realize what I saw straight off: this movie has plenty of flaws and is mostly all just showy nonsense."

I just think you need to lose the "haha, Jackson worshiper's think this was good when it sucks. "C+" at best." thing. I get the distinct feeling you don't even read most of the posts. There are plenty of ways to express your feelings against Kong, but every post I read of yours you choose the most obnoxious ones.

Oh well, I dun even know why I wrote all that out...end of the day, it all comes down to opinions...and whether you think we're all just major blind Jackson fans or not does not really affect us in anyway. So yeah, yknow, whatever you say.

I would love to see a KJ'er who disliked Kong actually post a review that makes sense. One that makes no mention of his/her personal dislike of PJ.

Bunch of malarkey I tell ya.

And Bradley, you loved Aeon Flux. The less you say about Kong, the better.

dar has done that, but everybody has successfully ignored his posting so far.

Well, I'll find it. There's a lot of crap floating around.

I'm surprised that someone with your level of insight into movies would write off a movie with as much undeniable sci-fi cred as Aeon Flux, just because of the current anti-hype...

Besides, as I posted over in the "Box Office" forum, I am starting to see past my issues with Jackson:

...right

Here it is, loyalfromlondon.

Thanks Guybrush,

Dar, I agree with several of your points. Most, if not all of the early slow-mo and Ridley Scott style camera shots didnt work. Characters like Jimmy (what a name) lacked depth. I felt the romance too lacked depth. I also greatly disliked Jack Black.

But the film really isn't about any of those things IMO. The film is about Kong, which didn't misfire at all. The film is about Skull Island, which was just about perfect. NYC, worked. And most importantly, everything between Ann and Kong worked. Their scenes carried the burden.

I think what it comes down to is what's important to you as a viewer in a film. I would have loved for all the above issues to have worked. But my needs were met in spades for what was important to me as a viewer.

Yes, I know...

That's a good way to ignore and/or cover up any fault in any movie.
Listing all the flaws and mistakes that appear in a movie and then saying that they aren't important anyway, while the one or two positive aspects are - what a coincidence - the ones that the "film is all about", seems a bit cheap to me. If all those badly-written characters, scenes and subplots as well as the technical devices and camera techniques were unnecessary, Jackson should've just left them out. But of course, the new Peter Jackson movie had to be bloated to a 3h+ running time, even if this required to insert several crude and pointless additional storylines and characters. The problem is that all of those elements are in the movie now and can be judged, praised or criticized as much as any of the other aspects.

I've scrolled over this thread to find a review written in a red font. What does One Ahmed Johnson have to say about this film?

Loyal is just saying that those issues, he recognizes as a viewer but it didn't play into his thoughts about the film.


It seems cheaper to me if one walks out of a film they really loved and purposely trashes every miniscule aspect of it to be a bit dishonest too. But that depends on the viewer. I've had countless arguments of the fault I find in Crash but people, even if they think my critisim of the faults is not baseless, still end up loving that movie because of the emotional punch. I would say of my overall Kong experience that minor quibbles with an action scene that was too long (the stamped) and unnecessary characters didn't sink the movie in my estimation.

Of dar's review I say that I found that the Jimmy/Heart of Darkness stuff to be the worst part of the movie. The length is not really the problem here, it's just that the Jimmy stuff doesn't go anywhere and is to me, obvious symbolism. It had many reasons for being there in the story, the most important was to give humanity to all the ship people who were going to die, but it didn't amount to anything. Lumpy the Cook, Andy Serkis' real life character was far more impactful and provided some cute comic relief. Jackson was able to pull of emotional heft with nearly no character definition in the Rings films, so I don't know why it was a problem here. I think the thing about it is that Jackson genuinely liked the boat stories because he loves the material.

Again, this is Extended DVD type material that I agree should have been left out of a theatrical presentation. I did read an interesting article on racism and Kong (that Kong is the captured black man who is left loose to destroy a white world) that said that could have been Jackson's answer to the racism charges aimed at the movie in the 1930s... that a black man befriends a "wild" white boy... but I remain unconvinced.

I liked the Denham character and the way that Black played him (except the whole "I crap the crappers" line), because he always seemed on the edge of "salvation" before he pissed it down the drain, and he doesn't learn anything through this whole experience. Once on the boat, Jack Black for Jack Black's sake disappears.

I also really liked Jack Driscol's increased role in the screenplay. Jack is the other half of the perfect man, and the reason that they made Anne a fan of his is to give them an additional emotional connection that would sustain their love/friendship through the end of the film. Jack is as heroic as can be expected but also recognizes that he can't rip Kong out of Anne's heart. So he lets her go. Anne, upon returning to New York, chooses to bury all aspects of her journey and that includes not appearing in Jack's play. The actor guy, exists as contrast to Jack's real heroism, and maybe some of the shots of the actor guy are one too many, but they are there so... Maybe it's just me who identifies with Driscol this round and not Kong.

Also, while I really liked the bugs (the score in this section really amazed me, that they choose a slow moving song rather than an energetic action march), and regarding the whole machine gun thing, I would have at least edited it. It works as a small bit of comedy but may have gone on far too long, especially in a scene that was trying to be a bit darker. I really didn't like the stampede, it just went on too long and got to be uninteresting, whereas the T-Rex was a bit campy but still ultimately thrilling.

But then again, I'm critisizing like 15 to 20 minutes of the entire movie. For most of it I was intrigued and involved. I'm of the opinion that minus some of the New York special effects that the screenplay nailed EVERYTHING after the T-Rex sequence. I liked the fact that the film was campy at the beginning and turned to drama at the end. Movies that can successfully go on that journey and make a vast shift do well with me, including for example Moulin Rouge and Million Dollar Baby.


Regarding the 1933 Kong, Anne never gets to a point where she considers Kong. She doesn't offer herself to him, he steals her from her apartment (because Driscol faints!) and she screams all the way. The instant Kong is dead she embraces Jack, thankful that Kong is gone.

Watts plays the character as emotionally confused. I think it's a mistake to take it too far in the direction of something sexual. Like the Frodo/Sam relationship, I think it's far more based on friendship, wonder, understanding, and concern. From Kong's perspective, the relationship has always been a bit one sided (Anne wasn't willing to destroy half of New York to free him, she just disappeared into her old life) but Anne in the Jackson version tries to meet him at least part of the way.

Leave it to Roo to bring order.

Guybrush, I definitely agree with this. I give the film a B+ because it DOES have flaws that are blatant, and some of the overstuffing was the main reason for everything not working. I didn't feel anything for any crew member that was killed. Since time was devoted to trying to give these lame cliche-ridden characters something that would make me care, I'd call it a failure in that regard, and since the time wasted could have been used to develope Brody's character, which was a critical element to the film that failed because of over-indulgent excess. There was also some very unecessary FX stuff. The 3 T-Rex fight was cartoonish in the way that Kong didn't seem to have any evidence that he took 3 bites on the arm from a fully toothed T-rex. There were just too many instances in which Peter Jackson expected us to completely shut off our brains and give him a free pass. The last act was pretty much perfect, but since this is about the whole movie, and not just the last hour, I graded it accordingly. I think that's what was so frustrating for me, because these flaws were easily avoided, but the runtime seemed to be more of the priority.

Seeing that I gave it an A and you a B+, I think that pretty much sums it up.

Of course you are entitled to your opinion because that's all what it is, your opinion, not a fact...

I disagree, Kong has some flaws, yes, minor flaws which were overshadowed by the many things that worked and did so splendidly...

I agree the Ann and Kong relationship worked (Although I didn´t like how much of a love story It became, as It took away part of the tragedy of Kong´s story) and that Skull Island was spectacular (but too, far too much of everything...). I also agree that both were the most important elements of the story.

But that was actually the problem for me. It that is the essential part of it, that is what the movie tells more or less well... why the other hour and 15 minutes? Was there any need for any for that? Not really, IMO. I felt that this was the case of a sometimes great two hour movie buried under the weight of a dragging and head-scratcher 3-hour excessive extravaganza. And that really ruined the movie for me, cause not only It was frequently boring, It also was frustrating. I really thought a talented guy like Peter Jackson could have done much, much better.


Choubachou, It´s not that I can not feel love for animals... That´s beside the point. I mean that, for me, Kong is a Beauty and the Beast story. In Beauty and the Beast you have the tragedy of a character - The beast - whose love for the beauty can obviously never be corresponded. Is a metaphor for all those whose object of affection is so out of reach, they could never get the person they love. That´s Kong´s tragedy, even more so cause, unlike the Beast, he will never turn into a prince and live happily ever after with the princess.

In this movie, not so much. At some point both Ann and Kong seem so "in love" - so to speak - that there is no tragedy in Kong apart from being out of its element. Kong is happy with her, and she is happy with Kong. Which is not only a bit ridiculous, IMO, but also robs Kong of such an important part of the tragedy element. Not to mention that by making Ann so mesmerized by Kong, the movie lets her forget that Kong is a killer, a beast that thinks of Ann not as his lover but as his possesion; at the end of Skull island´s scene, there are sailors dying left and right trying to capture Kong, but Ann only has eyes for the beast´s suffering. And in the - cheesy as hell - ice pond scene, she forgets about all the people Kong as killed to get to her, all the damage he has caused, just for a chance to be in his hand. Did she want to go back with him to Skull island, or what? In fact, what does Ann want at all in the third act? Apparently, nothing. She is there just to suffer for the beast and nothing else.

I guess the main problem for me, we are not talking about 15 minutes here. In my case, It´s more like 75 minutes, at least. And I don´t mean that the movie should be 90 minutes long and that´s it; I mean that if you are going to expand it to 3 hours, you better make sure It´s well done, otherwise you end up with a bit of a dragging bore.

For me, there is not an interaction in the whole movie that works, except for Ann/Kong (And I even don´t like where that one ends up going). The whole idea of the Driscol/ann/Kong romantic triangle is a bit preposterous. So Driscol lets her go cause she is thinking of Kong? That, apart from not being told (not even insinuated, and the fact that she is not playing in his play does not explain it) would make Ann to be really in love with a six feet ape. So much in love that he can be with anybody else, not even with a guy he seemed to love before. Now, there is an interesting story in there (More like an oversized "Hirsoshima Mon Amour", but still) but that was not in this movie.

Driscol was not needed. It is a lazily written character that is supposed to be an original hero cause he is actually a screenwriter; nice idea but, in the end, he behaves just like your typical hero, not a single original thing about him. It´s so not needed in the film, that at the end he has nothing to do, either, apart from hugging Ann. And what about the actor guy, who is a coward, then a hero who comes back to save the others from the bug pit, and then a coward again? Did he have any relevance, any significant connection to the other characters? I actually thing the only one who went through something mildly interesting was Colin hanks´ character, who in a way learnt about his boss´manipulative nature. But that was it.

Again, It´s just an opinion. But even if I liked things, there were many, many others that left me completely unsatissfied. More than an hour of things, actually.

RE: Ann-Kong, I wasn´t bothered by the sexual aspects, at all. See above post.

Driscoll lets her go (in my view) because that is what kind of a guy he is, he lets her have whatever emotional state she wants. It's a very modern-male approach that if you "let them go" they will come back to you (in a sense). Jack was against "caging" her (which is kind of a contrast to what is happening to Kong by the rest of the cast).


Hmmm. the subtext in the scene where Driscoll is watching his own play and it's expressing his feelings towards her makes me disagree with you here. Then again, Driscoll is the character I identified with, so that that for what you will


I would never accuse the character of being "original", but I still think you can have well written and set up characters that follow traditional models. Especially when we are talking about a remake of a movie with a template. Driscoll *had* to be in there to make this even partially true to the original vision of King Kong. I liked what they did with him. For anybody to adapt Kong, Driscoll is a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" kind of character. I'm not using that as an excuse to put him in an adaptation, because I think personally that his presence is needed and even in the 1976 version they did far more with him than in the 1933 version.


Anne needed that hug though, she needed support and that's his primary function in Jackson's version, to support her. Whether he is an equal, and a lover or whatever is something that's not completely explored. If it was a *kiss* I think that would have failed the movie.


Just as a contrast to Jack. He existed for Jack's character definition. The thing that Jack and Kong share is consistancy, which virtually no other character in the piece has. I won't go out of my way to defend every scene with him in it though, I got the jist of the character in 3 scenes, as he is (supposed to be) pretty stereotypical. An extra minute or 2 less of him in a theatrical cut probably would have been adviseable. He's only in it for like 5 minutes anyway.


That's fine.

This isn't related to your post necessarily but:

It is important, for anyone who has not seen the original King Kong (1933) that there is very little cinematic evidence to support Anne having any reciprocal feelings for Kong. In it, she is tied up at the theater, screams, is stolen, is lost, Jack takes her to her apartment at the Empire State Building and is then stolen from there, Kong dies, and immediately pines for Jack the moment that he is dead. No sunset, no glances, nothing. It’s not that Kong lacks that definition, it’s just that the relationship is one sided.

The theories about Anne having feelings for him is more of a product of 70 years of re-interpretation and yes, even parody (Simpons!) the 1970s version explores it a little, but it spends most of its time making Jack “Prescott” a more central hero figure. This all has to do with the way that cinema and especially figures of horror have evolved since the original Frankenstein, through the re-definition of the “hero” in the 1970s and beyond.

The Jackson adaptation is smart in this third act area:

1. It allows Kong to still go rampaging around New York.

2. It makes Driscoll more of a hero figure by allowing Kong to see and chase him around the city, theoretically saving more innocent lives in Times Square.

3. By separating Anne from the theater, Kong is allowed to rampage and kill but not in the presence of Anne, whose relationship with Kong remains untainted because she is not a party to the horrific things he has done in Times Square.

It seems to me that between Kong and Brokeback there is a lot of bitching about "grades", what people should grade things and how people interperet those grades. This is not a competition, the reason why we care about them in other sections is just Box Office projection or Oscar projection.

People wonder why I stopped using "grades" in general. I wish the reviews section abolished grades except for those who want to partake in them.

In this movie section, I much more appreciate comments like dar's where we can discuss the movie at hand and get beyond all of the garbage posts about "fanboys", "loonies", "haters" and whatever. A "hater" and a "fanboy" can still have interesting comments and objective opinion about a film and most of us I wouldn't even describe as fitting into either of those camps. If you want to make fun of Kong or Brokeback or whatever, there are threads elsewhere that fill that need.

At least in the reviews section can we steer towards civil discussion?