King Kong (2005)

(c) A.J. Malouin

(Rating: 10 by Al)
(2005—Peter Jackson—New Zealand/USA) Oooooops! I tink we saw the DVD version in the theatre. You know, the one with alllllll the extraneous material and alllllll the extraneous scenes. This entertainment has a lot to recommend it but, unfortunately, also has a lot that should have been left on the digital editing floor. In our own self-interest, we believe that any movie story can be told in two hours, 15 minutes. Here, with Kong, Peter Jackson has sidetracked us into the extraneous. The movie moves towards the audience like a huge hairy iceberg toward the Titanic. The back story material on Jack Black, who plays the star-crossed director of the movie within a movie, and Naomi Watts, who plays the actress in his epic, could have been handled in two scenes of dialogue aboard the ship sailing toward Skull Island. Instead we are shown 20-some minutes in NYC. Much of this material tries also to establish The Depression as the setting of our story. It’s another waste of Our Precious Time. As Ann Darrow, Naomi Watts does a great job in the cross-species romance with the ape. Much of her getting to know him, however, is both touching AND over-the-top. When Watts is free behind the wall, she spends tooooooo much time running from the wild prehistoric beasts. As she has to run from three or four monsters too many, the audience actually starts laughing at her never-ending peril. Jackson here proves, once again, that he may not know how to end a movie: Kong’s death scene atop the Empire State Building goes on and on and on…and on. The two members of the cross-species romance spend far too much time staring into each other’s eyes. Fall off the building, already, ya big ape!!! The special effects of this entertainment are spectacular, and the story itself is unbeatable. Jackson, however, indulges himself too much at the expense of his audience. Jackson’s King Kong has a lot to recommend it: but only if you have an extra hour in your life that you don’t care anything about. (3 hours 7)