At 187 minutes, King Kong is certainly not breaking from the streak of lengthy films that Peter Jackson started with his Lord of the Rings trilogy. He probably could have shaved about 30 minutes off simply by cutting all of the close-ups of character’s faces we are treated to every time they run into a new wonder of Skull Island. I rejoiced as characters began dying because each time it meant one less face to cycle through when next they would all be awestruck.
The good news is that I was awestruck as well. Not only does King Kong kick as much ass as we’d expect a 25ft gorilla to kick, he’d probably kick the ass of any other 25ft gorilla that crossed his path. As far as action goes, this film has some of the best sequences I have ever seen. Most of them are packed into one extensive section of the film, with little to no break in between, and this actually strengthens the individual scenes. By presenting these scenes back to back, the film delivers a real sense of the relentlessness that this vicious island holds.
Action aside, this story is really about love. There are two love stories here, not counting Jack Black’s love of himself. Of the two, I bought the relationship between Anne (Naomi Watts) and Kong much more than that between Anne and Jack (Adrien Brody), and that’s okay because the film focuses much more on the former. The daunting task of creating a believable love story between a woman and a giant monkey is so impressively executed that it makes me wonder how Jackson could pull this off and yet not be able to make me care about the romance between two humans, which has the distinct advantages of verbal communication (beyond roaring and screaming) and compatible naughty parts.
Article comments
1 - Steve
Though the special effects in this movie were well done, I must say, the movie somehow lacked the atmosphere of the original. I was a little disappointed, actually.