Movie Review: King Kong
Jan. 14th, 2006 05:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hrjI am very much not a fan of movie remakes. I'm not saying that once a story has hit the screen it should never be done again. I'm willing to make a broad exception for stories with no definitive version. There are a lot of Arthurian movies that shouldn't have been made, but not for the reason that "it's already been done". And I'll make an exception for movies that haven't been done right yet. Take "A Little Princess" for example. Folks, her father DIES. And he STAYS DEAD. Until they get that right, they have to keep trying.
But for the most part, movie remakes are nothing more than laziness and a lack of imagination and guts. "Hey, rather than taking a chance on being creative and innovative, let's feed the public stuff that they've already eaten once." You know what you call food that someone's already eaten once? Do the digestion, friends. Color was not a good enough reason to remake "Miracle on 34th Street". Steve Martin's stale career was not a good enough reason to remake ... well, a whole bunch of things. With rare exceptions, I won't bother to watch remakes unless they're on late-night tv and I have nothing better to do while reading e-mail or sewing.
So when I heard that Peter Jackson, fresh from the truly awesome Lord of the Rings trilogy was turning his energy to a remake of King Kong, I winced and wondered if maybe he'd only had one seriously great project in him after all. I mean, once you've got all that practice in epic effects and creatures, I can understand wanting to find new directions to apply them. But how about some NEW directions?
Then I saw a trailer for King Kong and was impressed enough with the visuals that I had second thoughts. Maybe it was worth a look after all. Well, here I am to tell you, I'm eating my pre-digested movie and loving it. Ok, the visuals -- not just the effects, but the whole "dressing" of the movie -- were worth the look alone. And I haven't yet gotten tired of creature effects that convince me they have a casting office in several alternate dimensions. But what really hooked me was that Jackson got it right about this being a love story. *sniffle*
I will warn viewers that the movie has something for every phobia, especially ones involving creepy-crawly or slimy creatures ... and plenty for my favorite, acrophobia. There's a pretty high body count -- and there's a nice little moment just before the climax when you see that statistic haunting the back of the film-maker character's eyes. It's the momentary depths like that that redeem this film from remake hell for me. I will note, however, that the story could have lost perhaps a third of its three-hour length without serious impairment, unless you're an obsessive fan of disasterous brontosaur stampedes.
But for the most part, movie remakes are nothing more than laziness and a lack of imagination and guts. "Hey, rather than taking a chance on being creative and innovative, let's feed the public stuff that they've already eaten once." You know what you call food that someone's already eaten once? Do the digestion, friends. Color was not a good enough reason to remake "Miracle on 34th Street". Steve Martin's stale career was not a good enough reason to remake ... well, a whole bunch of things. With rare exceptions, I won't bother to watch remakes unless they're on late-night tv and I have nothing better to do while reading e-mail or sewing.
So when I heard that Peter Jackson, fresh from the truly awesome Lord of the Rings trilogy was turning his energy to a remake of King Kong, I winced and wondered if maybe he'd only had one seriously great project in him after all. I mean, once you've got all that practice in epic effects and creatures, I can understand wanting to find new directions to apply them. But how about some NEW directions?
Then I saw a trailer for King Kong and was impressed enough with the visuals that I had second thoughts. Maybe it was worth a look after all. Well, here I am to tell you, I'm eating my pre-digested movie and loving it. Ok, the visuals -- not just the effects, but the whole "dressing" of the movie -- were worth the look alone. And I haven't yet gotten tired of creature effects that convince me they have a casting office in several alternate dimensions. But what really hooked me was that Jackson got it right about this being a love story. *sniffle*
I will warn viewers that the movie has something for every phobia, especially ones involving creepy-crawly or slimy creatures ... and plenty for my favorite, acrophobia. There's a pretty high body count -- and there's a nice little moment just before the climax when you see that statistic haunting the back of the film-maker character's eyes. It's the momentary depths like that that redeem this film from remake hell for me. I will note, however, that the story could have lost perhaps a third of its three-hour length without serious impairment, unless you're an obsessive fan of disasterous brontosaur stampedes.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-01-15 05:53 am (UTC)I saw a preview about six months ago, and my brain did a 180 ... the preview alone, where you never actually saw Kong, was visually stunning. I then said to myself ... "Well, it MIGHT be worth seeing ..."
I saw it as a matinee a couple weeks ago, on one of those afternoons where I had no work happening, and ...
I was overall quite impressed. I felt that a couple scenes were gratuitous -- thrown in as "I can, so I will ..." -- the brontosaurus stampede and the giant insect bits were the most egregious of these. Otherwise, I thought it was amazing. Using Andy Serkis to model Kong was brilliant. Good movie overall, well worth seeing ... (it helped that recently Turner Movie Classics was showing the original King Kong, and I watched most of that one morning before seeing the Jackson version ...).
Sounds like a candidate --
Date: 2006-01-15 03:35 pm (UTC)It reminds me in some unexplored ways of the Beauty & the Beast variations.
Re: Sounds like a candidate --
Date: 2006-01-15 03:36 pm (UTC)Re: Sounds like a candidate --
Date: 2006-01-15 05:33 pm (UTC)Re: Sounds like a candidate --
Date: 2006-01-15 10:37 pm (UTC)