Boy did I want to enjoy this one! Although there seems no reason to remake this venerable classic, with Peter Jackson at the helm (as in the talent behind LOTR:Return of the King) why not?
And as a middle-aged guy, I remain surprised at how sad I feel about the(inevitable) climax of the film, the fate of Kong. The grand creature and his interactions with Naomi Watts, struck a nerve. Seemed so stupid, so cruel, so wasteful to have that remarkable Primate wait so long for a human connection, only to turn it into a tragedy. So the "humanizing" of this fabled, but imaginary "character" affected me far more than anything else in the movie.
While the New York scenes at the beginning were a hit with me (Who would ever believe a 2005 movie begins with an Al Jolson song?!), you can almost feel the "get on with it!" restlessness of the audience. Then on Skull Island, we are rocked between truly exciting vs redundant boring scenes. And the plausibility problem: Gee, who would have thought people can outrun/hide between stampeding dinosaurs? That a playwright and underemployed actress had such upper body strength? That a 20 foot gorilla could be bitten repeatedly with no ill effect?
Things would have worked out better for me (and others?) if we went from 3plus down to 2 solid hours, with all Naomi/Kong scenes maintained, with more credible scenes, with the Adrien Brody given something interesting to do. OK, I give it a "7". And still mourn the white man's idiocy of destroying something so fantastic, so unique, so feeling as the Great Kong!
And as a middle-aged guy, I remain surprised at how sad I feel about the(inevitable) climax of the film, the fate of Kong. The grand creature and his interactions with Naomi Watts, struck a nerve. Seemed so stupid, so cruel, so wasteful to have that remarkable Primate wait so long for a human connection, only to turn it into a tragedy. So the "humanizing" of this fabled, but imaginary "character" affected me far more than anything else in the movie.
While the New York scenes at the beginning were a hit with me (Who would ever believe a 2005 movie begins with an Al Jolson song?!), you can almost feel the "get on with it!" restlessness of the audience. Then on Skull Island, we are rocked between truly exciting vs redundant boring scenes. And the plausibility problem: Gee, who would have thought people can outrun/hide between stampeding dinosaurs? That a playwright and underemployed actress had such upper body strength? That a 20 foot gorilla could be bitten repeatedly with no ill effect?
Things would have worked out better for me (and others?) if we went from 3plus down to 2 solid hours, with all Naomi/Kong scenes maintained, with more credible scenes, with the Adrien Brody given something interesting to do. OK, I give it a "7". And still mourn the white man's idiocy of destroying something so fantastic, so unique, so feeling as the Great Kong!