King Kong [Blu-ray]

Okay, I admit it: I'm a little bit of a fanboy. I think you have to be to some extent, though, when going into a movie knowing it's about a giant ape rampaging through New York. I walked out of the theatre thinking this is the best movie I've ever seen, probably due to the mass assault on my senses. I knew that idea would be tempered after reflection, but for reviewers to give this movie 1's & 2's is laughable. What would they rate the Dungeons and Dragons, You Got Served, Kazaam, Gigli, Spice World or Jaws: the Revenge for crying out loud?Although I don't think any Oscars will be shelled out for the acting in King Kong, I must disagree with those that say the performances were terrible. I was not a Jack Black fan going into the movie, but I am more so now. All the other roles were either done well or only suffered from a bit of mis-direction, if you can forgive the play on words. And I've heard numerous reviewers say how bad the final line of the movie is. Am I wrong, or isn't the last line taken straight from the original?Speaking of nods to previous versions, I just had to make mention of the native stage scene. (I haven't seen it previously mentioned, though I haven't read all 700+ reviews on this site either.) The costumes for the natives on stage in New York looked very much like the true natives' costumes from the 70s version. Fans of Kong had to chuckle at that.As far as the movie's length goes, I had no problems with it. When I'm shelling out $9 to see a movie, I'll take three hours over two any day, as long as I'm not bored. I did not find myself squirming once, unlike Lord of the Rings...and I'm very much a Tolkien fan! Of course, with three hours to work with, I understand those reviewers asking for a little more character thought into just what is going on there at Skull Island. On the other hand, they of course would have no idea and didn't seem to have much time to think about it.The brontosaurus (or whatever they are exactly) pile-up, though a great idea, was a little cheesy for my tastes. As many have already stated, the CGI was a little suspect here and too many people escaped certain death. That is a problem I have with most action movies these days, though. The certain death factor can be scaled back a little bit to make it both scary AND believable. Only one character to my recollection simply found a crevice to hide in until the rolling thunder passed. Did other reviewers miss the folks that were pulverized into oblivion in that scene, though? And I understand that there was a need to spur the beasts into a stampede, but enough with the raptors already. Kong or one of the T-Rex's would have sufficed.My biggest grief with the movie was the bat scene. Using one as a hang-glider was just plain bad. Luckily, the scene is short and thus a little more forgivable. Don't get me wrong, though. Whereas the scenes in the city were the highlight of the previous movies, the jungle action was probably the pinnacle of this film, for good or ill. The bugs scene, probably another nod to the original "snake pit" footage that was cut due to its grisliness (if I recall correctly) and subsequently lost to time, was utterly disturbing and the effects fantastic.Speaking of effects, I agree with some reviewers that Kong himself seemed to have slightly varying sizes throughout the movie, but I'm not sure everyone is considering the beast's surroundings. He's obviously going to look bigger inside a New York theatre as compared to the top of the Empire State Building. I can certainly forgive a few feet here or there if it's done for good cinematic effect.Another question mark is the taxi cab chase. As fun as it was to watch, just what was the character trying to accomplish? Instead of leaving Kong to his business of smashing a bus all to pieces, he leads him on a romp through the city causing untold amounts of carnage and property damage. I guess you could argue that he had the best of intentions (draw the beast away from the bus) and, again, didn't have a lot of time to think about the repercussions.So you must be wondering, after all of the low points I've detailed and the explanations I've given for dubious areas of the film, why I was so high on it walking out. It cannot be fully explained in words. The detail of the early city scenes, the character building on the boat, the dramatic build up to the finding of the isle, the sweeping landscapes of the jungle, the terror of the native attack, the dinosaur fight scenes, the vertigo of the airplane assault scenes all must be experienced (preferably in the theater) to be understood. I even enjoyed the "ice skating" scene, but then I'm a sucker for whimsical brutes.Though you can debate the nuances and certain parts of the storyline, I can't see how anyone can reasonably argue that Peter Jackson did a disservice to the Kong franchise with this incarnation. I would be inclined to say just the opposite: that the atmosphere of the film alone was worth the price of admission. But hey, take any review with a grain of salt, especially from a self-proclaimed fanboy.

This movie wraps itself around you; all 3 hrs of it. There are a couple of parts where I wish the blanket were trimmed, but they fade into insignificance; at best they would have shaved off a few minutes. So, who cares?Why the 'wrapping' metaphor? Because this movie is all about that elusive story-element called 'pay off'. KK is a masterpiece, not only of re-telling a classic and archetypal tale of Beauty and Beast, but also of almost perfect closure of every foreshadowing-pay-off element in sight.It starts with the music. "I'm sitting on top of the world".... Has it ever sounded more sinister, ominous and bitterly satirical? Caged animals and food-lines. The dead giant surrounded by roaches-sorry, 'people'. Yes, here as well, with every line of the song, there's build-up that ultimately finds closure. Later the captain talks about roaches. The giant insects and leeches in the ravine. The milling crowds streaming into the theater. The milling crowds surrounding the fallen giant. Everything fits together. I watched it thrice and I've yet to find an event that didn't have closure. Even the interminable dino-stampede had a fore-shadowing purpose, but I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure it out.Jackson of course delights in overdoing his creatures; the appellation 'Giant Weta' suddenly assumed new meaning. Real 'Giant Wetas' can be quite sizable and look pretty intimidating; not for the faint-hearted. Jackson just took the name and ran with it. Masking the story-telling significance of the events by making it gruesome and quite scary. That's the way to do it. I don't know if Jackson is fully aware of what he did-sometimes these things are gut decisions, not necessarily cerebral-but whatever prompted him to make his directorial and editing decisions...it worked.The Beauty and the Beast. Here, too, is something that most other reviewers missed. Because it isn't a 'love'-story between human and simian at all. That's how it was sold to us, and everybody bought it; but it's so much more subtle and, dare I say it?, 'perceptive'. Those who see the story as the boy-girl thing between ape and girl will miss it altogether.The real 'love' story actually _is_ between Ann and Jack. He's the human analogue to the ape, the one who can be what the ape cannot-and who ultimately _is_ what he ought to be. The 'love' story between KK and Ann is more subtle-it is the tale of two creatures, from different worlds, who discover that beauty is...ahh, did you think I was going to say 'transcendent'? Well, possibly that's what Jackson intended to convey, but it could just as easily be understood as beauty simply everywhere, but until it is perceived it might as well not be. That, of course, is the essence of beauty: that it is indeed in the eye of the beholder, for 'beauty' is always 'beauty-perceived'; there is none other.KK is also about 'nobility'; something usually ignored or downgraded in its importance in most films made at the moment. The ape is savage, because he has to be in order to survive. Yielding to softer aspects of one's nature is lethal in that world; even apes can be brought down, in this instance by the closest thing to human existing in that island-enclosure, namely those gargoylish bats; on the mountain top, where KK, and others of his kind, appear to have gone before: the top of their world, whence they could watch beauty; the only kind available here, dimly understood, yet perceived: a sunset. Now KK takes the one other creature whom he has perceived as 'beautiful' to that same, dangerous place; but this time, while he is not killed himself by the sharp-toothed creatures tearing at him, it is by their agency that Ann is taken from him-and also by her human love, Jack, of course; with her, one must emphasize, complete collusion-he is lured to his final doom. Nobility battling it out with savage and basic instincts, urges, imperatives. Nobility wins; nobility instantiated in one's preparedness to protect that which one holds dear, for whatever reason, to any degree necessary. It's a fundamental animal urge; yet it is the one that allows even an animal to achieve nobility, dignity and purpose. The indictment of the human roaches-be they the, extremely un-PC, savages on Skull Island or the hyper-refined crowds going to see the 8th Wonder of the World-is all the more searing, because they appear to have no sense of it; and neither do they have even the tiniest shred of empathy for anything outside their own horizon.Ann's sentiments for the ape are more like 'compassion' than 'love'; understanding of the divided nature of that giant creature, on the human side of sentience in many ways, yet constrained to be something else because of what he is. Is there a better metaphor for humanity itself, and the eternal conflict between what we are and _need_ to be in order to survive and be 'human'; and yet there is that other thing that makes us want to be something 'other'-which we cannot be, individually or socially, because we would cease to be human. In the same vein KK is what he is, and he can only do what he does because he is that way. The paradox of our own existence.Jack is KK's human mirror-image, driven by the same instincts, but here they are constrained by his civilized upbringing. He is not a fighting machine, but a playwright-yet everything he does, shortly after meeting Ann, is essentially driven by the same motives as KK's: to protect her. He doesn't understand this at first; civilization and its essentially trivial accoutrements prevent him from seeing that which truly matters to him. But in the end, after the ape has fallen to his death, he's at the top of the Empire State Building with her.So, you see, the story isn't as simple as some would have it. Some humans come off very badly-especially those who have lost sight of the things that matter, and who become immersed in trivial self-importance and the gazillion meaningless pursuits offered by society to those who need them. But not all have lost perspective and others find it. The ape overall exhibits more nobility than most humans though. This is not so much anthropomorphization of the ape, but an indictment of the insectization of humans.KK is not just a good movie, but a great one; done with obvious affection for the genre and the story-with more depth and dimensions than either of its predecessors; more than I had expected or even dared hope for.Till Noever, owlglass.com, Author: KEAEN, CONTINUITY SLIP, SELADIENNA