My Two Cents

A writer who’s name I’ve forgotten once recommended that you should begin your story as late as possible. The sooner you get to your meaningful action the better.

I think I would have preferred it if Peter Jackson’s King Kong had hit the theatres with a leaner 2 1/2 version and then followed up with the expected four hour extended version on DVD. Once the gang gets to the island the story is pretty lively. Before that … There are characters that I’d have been happy to have learned more about – later. At the theatre spending time with those characters just slows the story down. Ultimately the important human characters are Denham, Darrow and Discoll. Everyone else is just Kong/dinosaur fodder. I loved the movie. I can tell because different scenes keep replaying in my memory. I keep seeing Kong’s scarred face. I’ll be happy to watch that four hour extended version. I think I’d have preferred to wait for the extra material.

4 thoughts on “My Two Cents

  1. I guess I’m not in a hurry to see Kong. I’m just kind of tired of King Kong.

    And that’s always bugged me, too — the long slow start of many a monster movie. C’mon, the set up is not why you go. The set up should be as painless and as brief as possible.

    We finally rented Aliens vs. Predator. It wasn’t awful, as I’d expected. Not that it was good, really. You can’t watch it expecting it to be good cuz then you’ll be disappointed. Rather, it’s one of those superhero/villain team-ups that doesn’t really fit into the continuity of either character’s regular series but is merely an excuse to watch two cool monsters/heroes/villains pit their powers against each other. We enjoyed the battle scenes.

  2. Glad you liked the movie. Myself, I have no intention of seeing it. I saw it twice before (the other versions) and as good as the effects are, in the end… the monkey falls off the building.

    I’m tired of Hollywood being so out of idea that it has to remake movies… over and over again. Yes Peter Jackson is a great director, yes the effects are 100% better now, yes it’s a stellar cast… but there’s nothing really new to the story, well, except for the beastiality I’ve head about.

    Sorry, I’m broke as it is, so I’d rather spend my money on something new… or at last something changed enough that it’s not just a remake.

  3. G –

    You’re the first person I know personally that’s seen it. Hmmm. If you didn’t hate it then I probably wouldn’t hate it.

    J –

    Well, he doesn’t exactly fall off the building. He sort of levitates to the street. It’s the only way you can explain why he misses hitting the building on the way down (unlike the original Kong who does a little bounce) and somehow fails to become a splattered mass of Kongjam. Given all the other laws of physics that the movie ignored I didn’t worry about it.

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