King Kong

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hifikrazy

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Saw this yesterday. All in all not too bad, certainly entertaining, and the kind of thing the cinema was made for. The story is basic (as it was in the original) and the effects not only well done (for the most part, in a few minor places that most wouldnt notice the effects were simpler) but well used. Kong himself is brilliantly done and the acting is actually pretty good for a movie blockbuster.

(Probably shouldnt be a 12A though - im not usually too bothered by ratings, but personally im not sure if i had kids i would want my under 12s to see this, one part in particular is a bit grim and actually the worst part of the movie.)
 
Some of the non kong / rex fx was about ropey - rubbery dinosaurs falling downstairs anyone? I also thought the characterisation and atmosphere vanished not long after the big rex fight. Rexes suspended by vines made me chuckle quite a bit. I think the director got lost in the cleverness of the FX that he could achieve. A good blockbuster but not a classic.
 
Wouldnt disagree with most of the above mate. As for the effects that werent too good, one that sticks in my mind was involving the taxi nr the end - when viewed from above a few times the animation was extremely ropey. The water pretty well done actually. The best special effects (and the best use for it) are the things that go unnoticed, usually small details etc.
 
i felt the effects were rather tongue in cheek reflecting the stop motion of the original certainly there were some howlers such as the ludicrously out of scale long shots during the empire state building and the wobbly way in which the biplanes flew, these must have been intentional as pj's fx shop did a cracking job with lotr.
i also felt that the film was great up until about when kong was captured - then it just went into stock - humans bad, ape good, black and white americana. the scope was there to show shades of grey but i guess the current climate doesn;t allow that.
overall though better than i expected, but then my expectations were very low to start with as i wasn't a big fan of the original.
 
It's not a bad film but I would echo the dodgy fx in parts which were actually quite poor I thought.
However it is a watchable film but then I'm getting a bit fed up with remakes - I'm sure the amount of money used for this film could have funded a few decent original films.

I got the feeling it was just an attempt to put the PJ fx gang into action on a old film and cash in on PJ being the director of the moment due to LOTR which I thought was much better done all round.

Not surprised to hear PJ being interviewed recently saying he was thinking of going back to low-budget for his next film - wonder if the studios will let him ?
 
griffo104 said:
wonder if the studios will let him ?
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I thinks it's a job by job basis so he should just be able to do what he wants. I'm sure he has more choice the other directors!

regards
Jay
 
julian2002 said:
i felt the effects were rather tongue in cheek reflecting the stop motion of the original certainly there were some howlers such as the ludicrously out of scale long shots during the empire state building and the wobbly way in which the biplanes flew, these must have been intentional as pj's fx shop did a cracking job with lotr.
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I think biplanes really were wobbly like that... Just wood and canvas (or maybe if you're lucky a bit of metal :) ), and much more twitchy and responsive than the planes we're used to these days. WWI dogfights were vicious....

Agree with the tongue-in-cheek aspect - the movie was intentionally very silly throughout, because hey, it's a very silly story! Agree the allosaurs dangling from vines made me think he'd maybe gone a bit too far (for one thing, those must've been MEGA strong vines - to be holding up two allosaurs plus Kong?? You're talking at least 15 - 20 tons in all there!)

I also felt the effects were very ropey in places - the apatosaur stampede was terrible, though again I got the impression it was intentional (or semi-intentional?) as a sort of homage to the ropeyness of the original. :)

i also felt that the film was great up until about when kong was captured - then it just went into stock - humans bad, ape good, black and white americana. the scope was there to show shades of grey but i guess the current climate doesn;t allow that.
overall though better than i expected, but then my expectations were very low to start with as i wasn't a big fan of the original.
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Really? I didn't get that at all - I thought it was very much not a straightforward ape good, man bad thing. Kong really was a monster - he was tearing up the town, murdering people left and right (I can't remember ever feeling that sorry for blondes before!) And he'd already shown that he was too much of a badass to be contained - the only thing we COULD do was take the bastard down, using whatever means necessary!

The only real villain in the story was Denham (the director - intentional/unintentional irony from Jackson? :) ), who I felt was a really interesting, thoughtful, and often hilarious villain. I thought Jack Black really nailed him.

All in all, it was an amazing movie, though very much "by PJ, for PJ" and perhaps a bit TOO self-indulgent for everyone to appreciate. I got the impression PJ's thinking for the movie was "we all saw King Kong as kids; you probably just saw a ropey stop-motion action flick - now let me show you what I saw..."

At some point I'll have to go back and rewatch the original. From what I've been told, there are [unsurprisingly] a LOT of overt and not-so-overt references to it. I'll also definitely have to see Jackson's Kong again once or twice before I can really form a proper opinion on it...

Dunc

P.S. - Kong was magnificent. The combination of Andy Serkis' acting, Weta Digital's effects (best CG ever??), and Jackson's directing made for one hell of a character, and one unlike any we've seen before...
 
griffo104 said:
Not surprised to hear PJ being interviewed recently saying he was thinking of going back to low-budget for his next film - wonder if the studios will let him ?
Click to expand...

This is something I'd like to see for several Directors.

They ought to challenge them to make films with certain restrictions.

1. Budget of no more than $15 million.
2. No actor involved has ever earned more than $300,000 for any previous movie.
3. Must be minimum of 90 minutes running time.
4. Nothing done as a favour or for free should have cost more than $50,000 if paid for.

Spielberg would be my first choice to try to see if he can still hack it in the real world.
 
I now its a bit late but i took my tribe to see it tonight, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I couldn't remember whether it was Kong or Narnia that you guys were saying that the SFx were a bit ropey on so didn't look for them. A bit hacked off off that they stuck to the original and didn't give me a happy ending, i always feel sorry for the big ape.

Jack Black is becoming one of my favorite comedy actors, I love everything he's done so far, Tanacious D is a well funny album too, what an artist. I think it is the way he pronounces his words so precisely, he just does it for me.

I also think that PJ made some of it deliberately Tongue in cheek, i bet they had a great laugh doing it. Strangely i liked the way that they built up the story line and background a little before going into full on max roar mode.

I think that my missus got a little bored with it at times, my two eldest (18 & 16 ) seemd to like it , my youngest (14) made some smart comment during a sad bit in the film , but as i glanced over i could see she was just being brave to hide the tears welling up in her eyes. ( ah, She's still only a baby in our eyes, as my wife noted it also and gave me a little wink ).
As far as i'm concerned if a film can pull people in so much that they get emotional then the actors and makers have done a damn fine job.

This film is coming towards the end of it's pre-DVD release life, which is why my family and the other 4 people in the auditorium got the pick of whatever seats we wanted, centre screen, centre sound FX for Sidney's mob , some films have just got to be seen on a massive screen with loud surround, this is one of them i think.

8.5/10 for me.
 
Call me negative, but I thought it was utter shizzle. I found the whole thing boring. The only good thing was Jack Black. ...actually the intro wasn't bad.
 
Tenson said:
Call me negative, but I thought it was utter shizzle. I found the whole thing boring. The only good thing was Jack Black. ...actually the intro wasn't bad.
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think utter shizzle is a bit strong :) , but yes there were a couple of times were i checked the time on my watch. Agree that the build up part was pretty good, the savages were pretty nasty too, surprised that they kinda appeared, then disappeared without a trace again too. Making old kongy laugh was taking the artistic licence to extremes, however it just goes to show that i don't think the director wanted us to take it too seriously...
 
I only just got round to watching this last week.

I guess I got what I deserved in watching a crap copy. Had to stop/start it twice, and overall the quality distracted too much to really sink into it.

However, despite a couple of time losing interest, I still enjoyed it. In parts, it was much darker than I'd expected. The natives were pretty nasty.

A couple of times I got the impression it was being made with a computer game franchise in mind.

Still, much enjoyed, and I'll wait for the DVD release to watch it properly.
 

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