Note: If you know the basic story of King Kong, this review does not contain spoilers. If you know nothing about it you will find some basic story elements.
This movie made me angry. Not because it's bad but because it has such spectacular action, beautiful shots and wonderful moments and still fails. This could have been great but Peter Jackson was too ambitious and wanted to make an epic emotional love story and a spectacular action adventure at the same time, not realizing that he didn't have Lord of the rings size material at hand but a pretty simple b-movie story.
If you cut out 45 minutes (especially in the first half) you can tune this into a fantastic Jurassic Park 4 (or Jurassic Park 2 for that matter as we now see that JP2 stole its story from Kong). It would be a first class action ride with stunning never-seen-before leave-you-breathless action sequences.
Sadly that was not enough for Jackson and that's where he fails. Though there are emotional moments that work, over all the characters are b-movie flat. There are stories of sidekicks that are pretentious and don't help the movie. There are at least forty close ups on Naomi Watts who is really beautiful but after about the 20th close up I can even tire from her beauty. The island natives are one-dimensional creatures. The acting is so-so. And after all, if Jackson had cared for a character driven beauty-and-the beast love story he should have toned down the action.
Whats left? Some of the best action sequences in movie history and a CGI Kong that really comes alive in a simple story that does not survive being handled as an epic.
This movie made me angry. Not because it's bad but because it has such spectacular action, beautiful shots and wonderful moments and still fails. This could have been great but Peter Jackson was too ambitious and wanted to make an epic emotional love story and a spectacular action adventure at the same time, not realizing that he didn't have Lord of the rings size material at hand but a pretty simple b-movie story.
If you cut out 45 minutes (especially in the first half) you can tune this into a fantastic Jurassic Park 4 (or Jurassic Park 2 for that matter as we now see that JP2 stole its story from Kong). It would be a first class action ride with stunning never-seen-before leave-you-breathless action sequences.
Sadly that was not enough for Jackson and that's where he fails. Though there are emotional moments that work, over all the characters are b-movie flat. There are stories of sidekicks that are pretentious and don't help the movie. There are at least forty close ups on Naomi Watts who is really beautiful but after about the 20th close up I can even tire from her beauty. The island natives are one-dimensional creatures. The acting is so-so. And after all, if Jackson had cared for a character driven beauty-and-the beast love story he should have toned down the action.
Whats left? Some of the best action sequences in movie history and a CGI Kong that really comes alive in a simple story that does not survive being handled as an epic.