Oh, Peter Jackson. I have loved your work for years, having first seen “Heavenly Creatures” then exploring from there. You made “The Frighteners” (which is one of my favorite films of the 90’s) and then went on to become super famous doing “The Lord of the Rings” movies. Maybe that’s what happened to make your “King Kong” remake the mess is it.
Now, when I say “mess” I am saying it in the best way possible. There is so much that is good and thrilling in “Kong” to make it worth seeing. But, by the same token, there is so much in the movie that is pointless and bloats it to that three hour run time.
Do we really need to take the time to get to know all the characters even when they don’t have anything to do with the basic story (ie: Preston, Denham’s Assistant, or the whole Hayes/Jimmy relationship). The entire Kong/Anne Darrow “love story” is problematic too as you have to take time from the action and adventure to set that up. And what gives with Jack Driscoll being a Broadway playwright instead of the first mate of the ship? I really couldn’t buy that he would be “man” enough to trek off into the dinosaur and monster bug infested island by himself to rescue Anne ’cause all we have seen him do up to that point is work a typewriter. Someone also needs to teach you the proper usage of “slow motion” as well. There was a lot of it in the Skull Island sequence that was just totally unnecessary. Only once did you use it effectively.
That said, there is a lot of cool stuff in the movie … the Tyrannosaur sequence, the “Spider Pit,” the Broadway theater scenes (loved that stage show) and the top of the Empire State building. If you could have just gotten rid of the fat of the film and made it lean with the really good stuff you would have a movie that would have done much better at the box office than it already has.
So, Mr. Jackson, can I get you an editor for Christmas?
[You can also see Kyle’s excellent thoughts on the movie as well.]
You nailed it, Chaz. Going in, I knew that because KK is PJ’s favorite movie of all time, there would be some “excess.” But jeez. And you just know that he will put out a special 4 hour edition of the movie on DVD. Whatever happened to the quaint notion that what doesn’t further the story, gets cut? Get thee an editior!
I think that they need to release it on dvd in a “Special Edition: Abbreviated Version.” containing Peter Jeackson’s 2-Hour Cut. If “Kong” had been 2 hours, it would have been totally kick ass.
I think it was pretty reasonable for Jackson, Walsh and Boyens (not to mention the Universal execs who agreed to let it run 3+ hours) to think they’d “cracked the code” for the long, epic movie. The long cuts of the LOTR movies ALL improved over the theatrical versions, especially TT and ROTK, both of which played like Greatest Hits reels in the theaters with parts that just didn’t make sense until the nuance of the character bits had been restored. (E.G., Aragorn and the horse in TT; Denethor going bug-fuck in ROTK).
It’s a shame this movie isn’t the home-run it should be. (Allegedly… I haven’t seen it yet 🙂 .
i agree that trimming “king kong” would have improved it, but my major problem with the flick is the treatment of the kong-ann relationship. why elaborate on that aspect of the stupid 1976 version? fay wray’s reaction to kong in the 1933 version makes perfect sense — she wants to survive, not show him the sights of new york. i understand that ann feels safer with kong in the jungle in the new version, but the stupid bambi redux on ice scene was embarrassing as were other scenes of that type. i mean, she teaches him to sign??? other than that, there were some pretty great sequences, but i think what could have been a terrific movie ends up flawed.