King Kong (2005)

In a Nutshell: Too long. The good parts were very good, and the rest of it wasn't bad in any way, there was just too much of it all the way around.

Quick Plot: A 1930s film crew searches for the mysterious Skull Island and its strange inhabitants, and find the giant gorilla called Kong. After kidnapping the beautiful star of the film, the ape is captured and transported to New York City, with disastrous results.

In Detail: First, please let me say that this is not a bad movie. It was just badly edited, or should I say, not edited at all. It is 3 hours long, no joke, and that does NOT include any commercials or previews. If there is a "director's cut" of this film, I might have to faint. An hour could *easily* have been cut out (dinosaurs *and* giant bugs, was that really necessary?), perhaps even an additional 15-30 minutes if you wanted to be a little more ruthless. Parts of it were so well done, so glorious, it is a shame it had to be dragged down by the excess footage. I think the biggest problem it has is that Peter Jackson wasn't sure what kind of movie he wanted, fun action or dramatic and heartfelt, so he tried to make both, and ended up making neither very well. What a shame. Either would have been excellent, but both together just didn't work. The film never settled on a rhythm or pace. You never knew if the next scene would be heart-wrenching or silly, so you were never fully comfortable in the world he presented. The effects were phenomenal in almost every aspect, and my hat is completely off to Naomi Watts, who did a mighty chunk of her work acting with *nothing* but a green screen and a ball on a stick for eye line purposes. Simply amazing acting from that perspective. But that alone could not make this film all that it was intended to be. Worth seeing, on the big screen if you are really interested (the effects may suffer on smaller televisions), just not the spectacular tribute we were all hoping for.

Will I Buy It? Unlikely.

Back to the List of Musings