| Hi again. Very interesting comments. And, I do plan on seeing Kong again. Re the characterization of the dinosaurs: If you look in the 1933 original, just afer the T Rex shows up, it stops to scratch itself. Later, in the fight with Kong, it does this great thing with its tail, pumping itself up to fight. Minor touches, yes--but the touches that made the original so good--and they were also the touches that made Kong himself in the 2005 version so much more empathetic. But those touches were lacking for the three T Rexes. Mind, I'm a spectacle kind of guy. I'd rather that often the camera plunk itself down and just let us see what is going on, rather than use a lot of quick edits and fancy camerawork (which usually is used to obscure what is going on, which is nothing much). Jackson sometimes went for such spectacle--the dino stampede--and sometimes not--the T Rex battle. Re comments about lonely Kong and the Natives: The lonely Kong/last of his kind Kong--that all came from press releases from the film makers. Virtually every commercial review I read had a line in it about Kong being the last of his kind, and being sad. Again, there was nothing in the film about that. And I'm not sure Kong was that sad. In that case, I agree with the comments posted, but here I am commenting on what people bring to the film, as opposed to what's there. As for the Natives, sorry, but I'll stick to my guns on that one. The natives in 1933 were first seen doing a ceremony--which implies civilization, culture, organization. They were clean, acted logical, etc. Peter Jackson's Natives start off by (spoiler, but not much of one) killing without warning one of the film crew. There is no ceremony at first, just a rag tag collection of, literally, savages. You get the impression in 2005 the Natives would happily kill everyone. In 1933, the Natives are only interested in Anne Darrow. Jackson could have opted to present the Natives with respect, but instead he did not. And to return to my point about pre-knowledge, if you read "The Making of King Kong" (did I get the book's title right) you will see a whole history of Skull Island (never in the film) which explains why the Natives are so savage and desperate (explanations also never in the film). Backstory is helpful, of course, but.... On the flip side, as noted in my first post, although the film was long I enjoyed watching it all the way through. Could have lost a lot of the introductory Skull Island stuff, and some of the bug stuff. But it could also stay. The larger problems are sometimes CGI just for CGI, or bigger just because bigger is supposed to be better. And, sadly, that Jack Black simply was not up to the acting challenges. The new Carl Denham is a nasty figure, complex. Imagine what an Alec Baldwin, Ralph Fiennes or Sean Penn could have done with that role, exploring the darkness underneath. But instead of them, we got Hayden Christiansen. Oops, different movie, similar problems. Wild & Hairy |