King Kong [Blu-ray]

REVIEW: When Peter Jackson brought his idea of King Kong to the movie studios back in 1996 he was quickly denied it. So, in the mean time he did three small films, you may have heard of them, they were about some ring or something like that. Universal came back to Jackson and said that if he still wanted to do it that he could. The result is one of the most awe inspiring films of all time. It's seriously hard to describe the scope of a film like this version of King Kong. We all know the story, I mean the script is 72 years old. Carl Denham, an eccentric filmmaker, is about to be finished because his producers are fed up with his recent flops. He decides that he's going to make a grand epic by exploring the uncharted and mythical Skull Island. He lures Vaudville actress, Ann Darrow who is reduced to stealing food because she can't find work. Jackson creates the perfect atmosphere of an America during the depression and we get this sense of desperation on both Denham's and Ann's part. On the boat Ann meets Jack Driscoll, her favorite playwright who is writing Denham's screenplay. They find Skull Island unexpectedly in the fog and in an incredible scene the ship tries to maneuver from the jagged rocks of the island wall. Once on shore the characters encounter the natives who kidnap Ann and give her as human sacrifice to Kong, who lives on the other side of a massive wall.Most of the film takes place on the island as the entire group tries to rescue Ann. The island has an atmosphere that is just undescribable. It's absolutely wonderous, and the scale is just immense. The brontosaurus stampede through the canyon is incredible. The visual effects are amazing in the film, and Jackson seamlessly blends visuals with sets to make it work. Later on Kong protects Ann as she tries to escape three Tyrannosauruses. The sequence is breathtaking, and you will watch with your jaw dropped as these giant beasts fight to the death. Another sequence is the spider pit scene, which was not in the original but is reportedly a lost scene. It never made it into the final cut of the 1933 version, but it is here in full glory. The most vile insects imaginable blown up to a huge scale will make you cringe into your seat. Everything is done to the extreme, but not to a point where the audience says "oh that's impossible, that would never happen", well maybe it's impossible but it's fantasy, so lighten up. Nothing is too extreme to a point of implausibility. The greatest thing about this version is the emotion, the connection between Kong and Ann that was hard to absorb from the original. We see a connection of two souls, a lonely beast who is the last of his kind, and a women who has been thrown out on the street. It's a love for one another's presence and Jackson handled that with expertise.The film has a shift in tone once we leave Skull Island, and Kong is captured and brought back to New York. We go from this incredible land of mystery to the city where Kong is put on display. Carl Denham has saved himself and thinks he is back on the top, which is all he cares about. Once Kong escapes and rampages through New York City looking for Ann we start an emotional ride all the way to the end. The moment Ann and Kong ascend the Empire State Building you start to anticipate the inevitable end. You watch as Kong basically climbs to his doom just to spend one last sunrise alone with Ann. After a poignant scene at the top there is the shot of the biplanes coming in from behind the building and it sends unnerving chills down your spine. The film's climax is stunning, one of the grandest most iconic scenes of cinematic history recreated through the mind of a master. James Newton Howard's score adds an emotional boost to Peter Jackson's poignant and epic vision. The movie is more than a visual effects romp, it is a truly beautiful story expressed in such a way that it will leave a grand mark on you as a movie goer. This new version has 13 minutes of restored footage, mostly stuff that is a homage to the original like the underwater escape off of the rafts.Jack Black plays the overly eccentric Carl Denham with perfection. His reaction, as he stands in the auditorium after Kong escapes into the city, sends a message that this character has basically brought upon is own demise. Naomi Watts plays her role mostly through screaming and through facial expressions, and she does a fantastic job interacting with a character who was digitally added in later. Andy Serkis did the motion capture for Kong, just as he did the acting for Gollum. His facial expressions and body movements give Kong a human presence, and it helps with the emotional connection of the two characters. Jackson even gave Serkis a side role in the film as Lumpy the cook, which I thought was great too. Adrien Brody plays Jack, who I think never comes to realize the connection Ann has with Kong and he feels distant from the audience as a character.VIDEO: King Kong looks absolutely stunning. This new version is pretty much the same transfer as the previous release. King Kong is a film with some sort of special effect in nearly every shot, so this transfer needs to look great. Color tones are right on the money, black levels are handled well, and the picture is overall incredibly sharp.AUDIO: The sound is again Dolby Digital 5.1, and some are asking "where is the DTS?". While this film would have been spectacular with DTS the Dolby Digital is only a hair behind. Simply, the sound is explosive and dynamic. Ambient noise is effectively spread across all channels to envelope you. The canyon stampede is probably the best sounding scene in the film. Don't dwell on the fact that there is no DTS, the Dolby track is very impressive.SPECIAL FEATURES: The special features are spread across all three discs. The first thing you'll find is the great commentary by Peter Jackson, which is incredibly informative and on par with the Lord Of The Rings commentaries. The next thing on the set are the deleted scenes, and there are a whole lot of deleted scenes. The visuals are unfinished, but it's interested to see what was left out of the already 3.5 hour extended edition. Next on disc 1 is the blooper reel, and this is probably one the best blooper reels I've seen on a DVD. It's pretty long and incredibly funny, and it just shows that Jack Black is funny no matter where he is. On disc 1 there is also a hidden featurette that is extremely funny, it's not hard to find at all. Moving on to disc 2 we have the incredible making of documentary. You can watch the whole thing together, or in the separate segments. There is an introduction by Peter Jackson and he explains that nothing here is repeated from the Production Diaries or the previous DVD. There is some really interesting stuff here, and all film students or film buffs need to watch it. The entire filmmaking process is shown in great detail from pre-production to post. There is also a featurette on recreating Skull Island and how the filmmakers wanted it to make it look like the same Skull Island from the original version. There are also a bunch of animated pre-visuals (basically takes the place of storyboards), and a video gallery which shows the concept drawings in montage form. Finally, you can load the third disc into your DVD drive and view the original 1996 script that Jackson cooked up just have it shot down by Universal, then you can compare it with the final version for the 2005 version. An amazing supplement of features is topped off with three trailers.BOTTOM LINE: "It wasn't the airplanes, it was Beauty killed the beast." When our generation watches the original King Kong we see a clay gorilla walking on miniature sets. When Peter Jackson watches the original King Kong he sees everything that we see in his film today. Every filmmaker has their one source of inspiration, and King Kong was his. I'm glad he shared it with us. We go to the theater for films like this and even though it is the second remake of this story, Peter Jackson has brought this film a new life and made it his film. It is truly a wonderful, exciting, heartfelt, and touching homage made for modern times.

Because Peter Jackson is such a fan of KING KONG '33, his 2005 remake is tough to separate from the original. And because I know the old film very well, it's tough for me, too. To begin with, I feel that Jackson's KONG is too long. If it were up to me, I would cut about 45 minutes out of it easily. However, the special effects are (mostly) great, though I feel that JURASSIC PARK (1993) is still better in this regard. I think the effects depicting Kong himself are very well done. Kong as a character is well conceived here, too, with some silver hair and battle scars. Given these positives, it's a shame that, for me, a lot of the film doesn't live up to them. *WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD!* Jackson opens the film with titles in the '33 style, then does a 1930's montage (Hoovervilles, bread lines, etc.) to educate today's audience about the period; these are flawless recreations, but go on too long for me. He then introduces Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts--good in the role) as a struggling actress. Filmmaker Carl Denham is later introduced as a ne'er-do-well con-artist in the Orson Welles mold (put six inches and a cheesy moustache on Jack Black--good in the part, BTW--and he'd be a ringer for Welles, c. 1942). Always on the make, he meets Ann as she contemplates employment at a strip joint, and sets sail on The Venture for parts unknown (Skull Island) before he can be arrested for absconding with studio funds. Trapped on board is Jack Driscoll (Adrian Brody), in this version a playwright and reluctant Denham partner (Brody is not bad in the part, but I feel he's not given much of a character to work with). The Venture's Captain Englehorn is a 40-ish, shady German; his first-mate is a strapping African-American guy named Hayes, who mentors teen crewmember Jimmy, a troubled youth (I feel that much of this sub-plot could be cut). Bruce Baxter, a preening male actor, also goes on the voyage. It's fully 45 minutes before The Venture crashes on the rocks of skull island--after Denham has been educated by Hayes and the English cook Lumpy about its history (in this version, he has the map to the island, but knows nothing of Kong). The natives they find on Skull Island are horrific--pierced, red-eyed, savage--and they kill some of the landing party (Englehorn saves Denham with his Lugar!). But here, I feel that the logical problems in the film begin--we never see their civilization. The gigantic wall is a ruin, and where the natives are encountered is a barren wasteland--exactly what is this wall protecting? These scenes are also filmed like a Sting music video from 1985, I'm guessing to underscore the action; I personally found that to be annoying, but your opinion may differ. Ann is kidnapped by the natives in a way even more illogical than in '33 (a native on a huge pole vault [!] Spidermans his way onto the ship and drags her off), and a terrifying female witchdoctor leads the ceremony sacrificing Ann. Ann is strapped into what looks like a giant slingshot and is semi-catapulted across a ravine to await Kong. When the big guy shows up, it's a whole lot like the 1976 Dino DeLaurentis version (not the last allusion Jackson makes to that film). Denham and the boys set out after Kong, though Denham is seen cranking his camera rather than leading the party (at times, I feel this is taken to ridiculous extremes, especially when he's on the log bridge while Kong is shaking it). The guys (mostly) survive a brontosaurus/raptor stampede (these scenes have a cartoon feel for me, though others might disagree), and the log bridge scene features more creepy bugs than I think would be logically possible (overall, however, it is effective). Jimmy machine-guns a ton of the slimy critters off Driscoll at close range--ridiculous, in my view. Miraculously, Englehorn and Baxter arrive just in time (again) to save Denham. In KONG '33, the giant ape's battle with a T-Rex is a highlight (and an inspiration for many filmmakers, including Steven Spielberg). Because it's the 21st Century now ("been there, done that"), Kong here--Ann in hand--fights three V-Rex's at once, falling off a cliff in the process and battling them in the hanging vines as they Wiley-Coyote their way to the bottom. These scenes are Nintendo fast, with sweeping camera, and, as such, are both exciting and annoying--I couldn't catch all that was going on (plus, they're so over the top logically that there's no credibility--and that's saying something, considering we're talking about a film featuring a 25-foot ape). Anyway, Kong finishes the last one off on the ground in '33 style--in my opinion, the best part of the film (here, Jackson tones down the Sly Cooper imagery, allowing for a long shot or two, which helped me orient the action). In a throwback to the '76 version, Ann begins talking with and entertaining Kong (though, unlike the '76 version, there's nothing sexual implied). These parts are bad in my opinion, and I'd cut them. Then, Driscoll appears out of nowhere (in '33, we saw him tracking Kong) and--while Kong battles huge bats [!]--the playwright and Ann make their escape by (at first) climbing down a vine, then GRABBING THE FEET OF A BAT and hang-gliding to the river below (this is absolutely the worst thing in the film). Like the Denham character Fred Wilson in '76, Denham risks the lives of everybody to capture Kong. The natives have strangely disappeared (to where?); it's only what's left of The Venture crew behind the wall. Kong's rampage once he gets through the gate is good, though illogic strikes again when Englehorn shoots him in the leg with a harpoon gun and cripples him (since Kong's brushed off at least three V-Rex bites FLUSH ON HIS ARMS--which would surely cause more damage--I'm not sure why this harpoon thing threatens him so much). Ann does the, "No, don't kill him!" routine, and tries to get off the lifeboat to protect him (awful). Denham hits the big guy in the face with a bottle of chloroform, puts him to sleep, does the "we're millionaires, boys" speech, and, like '33, we're suddenly in NYC on Broadway. As in the '76 version, Ann and Jack boycott the event (he opens his play off-Broadway, she acts in a review across town). Denham has Baxter and an un-named actress sub for them. At this point, Jackson does an interesting homage to Kong '33 by having the on-screen orchestra in the film play a variety of snippets from the original score--which, unfortunately, points up how lacking in drama the score for HIS film is (also, on stage, they recreate the '33 natives and their dance--interesting). Wanting to see Ann, Driscoll shows up at Kong's NY unveiling--and, like in '33, the photographers fire away, enraging Kong. He escapes (a good scene), gets loose, and throws cars around (okay--but, again, Nintendo). He's chasing Driscoll in a cab and about to kill him, when Ann appears in the street (her hair highlighted in a halo) and calms him down. He takes her through ice-covered Central Park (complete with decorated trees for Xmas--did they do that in 1933?), and, in an infamous scene, plays on the ice with her until the army starts firing missiles at him (all of this really should have been cut, in my opinion). He then climbs the Empire State Building--very effective--and sits up there with Ann as the sun rises (absurd). Six planes arrive with no warning, and Kong goes 'way on top of the building to battle them. There are some terrific shots here, though Ann--absurdly, like Dwan in KONG '76--tries to stop the planes from killing him (she apparently has NO FEAR of heights, and--in spite of what must be BRUTAL COLD UP THERE--doesn't shiver once in her party dress as she Indiana Jonses from perch to perch). In some spectacular images, Kong knocks out three of the planes before they get to him, though he has to take time out from the fight to catch Ann when a ladder comes loose from the side of the building (I get the feeling he could have beaten the planes if he didn't have to worry about her). When he finally begins to die, Ann's right on top of the building with him (in high heels, no less), and, as he falters, they stare at each other face to face, sharing a tender goodbye before he slips off (absurd in my view, though most critics don't agree). Driscoll then appears and hugs her RIGHT ON THE PINNACLE--apparently, this exchange of affection is more important than getting the hell DOWN from there. In Dino style, photographers stand on the dead Kong's chest for photos, Denham delivers the famous beauty-killed-beast line (but since he's been presented as such a con man and liar, I'm not sure why we should consider it to be profound, coming from him), and the film comes to an end. Overall, I found KONG '05 to be slow in spots, 'way overdone in others, and absurd in several.However, there are enough good things in the film to make me glad I saw it. Compared with KONG '33, it's better and it isn't. Obviously, the effects are far better--though, again, I still feel they're inferior to JURASSIC PARK. I find KONG '33 to be unintentionally funny in spots--the brontosaurus attack for example (and the jerky stop-motion effects take some getting used-to these days)--but once Kong tangles with the T-Rex, things get good and stay good. Denham, Ann, and Driscoll all make sense in '33, and I have to give the makers of the original a lot of points for coming up with all of this in the first place. In my view, what Jackson did to Denham in the remake is a crime, and though Ann '33 screamed too much, her "save-the-animal" sensibility here seems forced, maudlin, and anachronistic (I have to admit, though, that I have no idea how I'd react if I were a gorgeous blonde plaything for a giant ape). Too, the story MOVED in '33, and the music underscored the drama (a lot of illogical things weren't obvious because of the pace). In my opinion, Jackson has bogged the story down with unnecessary characters and motivations, and the musical score is nothing special. Stylistically, however, I think Jackson's KONG is gorgeous, though as I've mentioned, there are annoying (to me) music video/video game sections. In short, Jackson and company have made a good film. Had they stuck closer to the '33 script with modern-day effects, I think it would have been great. But I'll be buying the DVD from Amazon, no doubt.

ras

Großer Affe, Dinosaurier : Wer das mag, der hat hier mit der extended Edition seinen Film gefunden 😉

Lacht mich nur aus.Aber ich bin ein Mädchen, ich darf das:Obwohl ich meine gesammelten Filme horte und behüte wie Gollum seinen Ring, habe ich diesen Film nach dem Anschauen verschenkt.WEIL ER MIR ZU TRAURIG WAR !Bestellt hatte ich ihn, weil mir vom nächtlichen Durchzappen vor Jahren diese abgefahrenen Rieseninsekten im Canyon in Erinnerung waren. Sehr schön gemacht 👌🏼Auch die Annäherung zwischen Affe und Frau war zum Knutschen...und genau da liegt womöglich das Problem:Ich habe das Tier derart ins Herz geschlossen, dass ich die später folgende Grausamkeit und Brutalität nicht ertragen konnte, mit der es behandelt wurde.Ich musste unterbrechen und habe den Rest erst nach einer Weile geschaut - und geweint dabei. Jawohl.Lacht nur.

quelle joie de revoir ce film merci de votre envoi

Très bon film et en plus commenté en françaisDes scènes émouvantes