King Kong

I skipped out of work a little early Friday afternoon to see the last matinee of King Kong.

I was really excited. Peter Jackson is the bomb. If you haven’t seen his zombie flick Dead Alive, rent the unrated version. It’s has a classic scene where the hero holds up the base of a lawnmower and plows through a horde of undead with it, blades exposed. His movie with Kate Winslet, Heavenly Creatures is really good too. While we’re at it, The Frighteners is underrated as well.

I expected big lines and/or a sell out situation. I saw a 4:00 show on a Friday afternoon. The theater was half full. I was a little disappointed. I love seeing big event movies with a packed audience. Otherwise it’s like watching fireworks (which usually aren’t that great to begin with) without all of the goofballs and their “Uooooos and Ahhhhs”.

The new Colin Farrell/Jamie Foxx Miami Vice trailer ran before the movie. If they have this up online, check it out just to see the world class mustache Farrell is sporting. Wow! After this year’s mustache contest, I have a new appreciation for how difficult it is to grow, groom and maintain a good mustache. If I ever decide to grow facial hair again, I’ll be going for the new Crockett look.

They also ran the trailer for next summer’s MI:3. I’ve long believed that the secret to a great action movie is the inclusion of a great bad guy. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays the villain this time around. If this trailer is any indicator, he is going to be awesome. I can’t wait to see it.

Andy, they played one of RoF’s LeBron spots before the movie. It featured a young LeBron shooting dinner rolls into a basketball hoop, clever ad.

Back to Kong, I liked it. It falls a little short of the “rocketship” thumbs up, but it’s really good.

What’s good:

  • Kong - We have to wait an hour to see him but they did a great job with the facial expressions, movement, etc.

  • Jack Black - His character is the glue that hold the narrative together. He’s great in his role.

  • The action sequences are the best since, well…probably Return of the King. After about an hour of set up (which isn’t dull thanks mostly to Black), things pick up when the characters arrive at Skull Island. There are about 10 great action scenes. My faves were the giant insect fight and the dinosaur stampede.

What left something to be desired:

  • Naomi Watts, Adrien Brody, and the complete lack of any kind of chemistry between them. It’s hard to buy their part of the story. If this part of movie worked, Kong would have gotten “the rocketship” from me.

  • The CGI - I’m being a little nitpicky here. Almost all of the F/X work is top notch, but you’ll notice that when Kong is carrying Watts’ character around (quite a few times) that the mixing of CGI and live action was a little clumsy.

Overall, Kong is very good. I’ll be interested to see what Jackson does next.

Posted by chuck at December 17, 2005 4:15 AM

Comments

I haven’t seen King Kong yet, but I will. Anyway, Drudge has been making a big deal of Kong’s less-than-the-greatest-ever box office for the first few days. I’m gussing it’s because he’s so anti-Hollywood he enjoys rubbing the prognosticators’ noses in it.

I’m guessing once the Christmas break rolls around it’ll start doing really well. I mean, how are people not going to go see King Kong? It’s King Friggin’ Kong!

I haven’t picked out a day for it, yet, but Jim’s triumphant return to the “showhouse” as my Grandma called it, is coming. Have things changed much at the cinema since I last went to see “Passion of the Christ”?

Posted by: Jim at December 17, 2005 2:03 PM

As I talk to people who haven’t seen “KONG” this monday morning I feel that I have been entrenched in evangelical lip service on how good the film is commonly only reserved for promoting a small indie who needs the word of mouth to get over. People are just not seeing Kong! ?? It’s a very weird phenomenon. I don’t understand it. The casual movie-goer or cynical person just isn’t into it. Yes, a 50 million dollar weekend isn’t much to call “weak” but this was a film that they projected better than Titanic. I think it will have legs and keep doing business for a long time on the calendar. It just upsets me that Fantastic Four gets more heat. Kong is the real deal.

Biggest gripe of movie-goers on Kong: “What’s with the Dinosaurs?” -Hey retard, flip on AMC sometime. The 1933 Kong is chock full of dinos a full 60 years before Jurassic Park. It’s the movie! They’re not making stuff up to connect with Gen Y 12 year olds.

Overall, GO SEE KONG.

I haven’t had that much fun in a theatre in an adventure movie since I saw “Temple of Doom”at the Grand on WI ave. ……In 1984

Posted by: Andy at December 19, 2005 2:23 PM