Quite a lot of stuff to blog about, actually. But it's 1.35am(0135hr) and I'm spent (as usual, both physically and financially), so I'll just post a short (it turned out to be quite long after I finished...) review of King Kong, which I watched with aik joon and jinny yesterday.
I think my expectations of the movie were too high, esp. after reading all those reviews. I have to admit I was a little disappointed at the end of the movie. It just didn't match the intensity/impact of LOTR in terms of the storyline, performance by the cast, and cinematographic effects.
My greatest gripe is with the storyline, and pacing of the movie. This is undeniably a cheesy B-grade monster flick in terms of plot, and hence understandably incommensurable with LOTR, which is widely acknowledged as a literary classic. With such a weak plot, a lot depends on the director's vision to keep the movie from degenerating into inanity. However, as much as Peter Jackson did manage to articulate the tender affection between KK (Andy Serkis) & Ann (Naomi Watts) with nuanced performances by both Serkis & Watts, the pacing of the storytelling leaves much to be desired.
To simplify things a little, the story can actually be divided into 3 parts:
- Before skull island
- On skull island
- After skull island
The part on skull island is arguably the weakest link in the movie. It's pretty much a CGI-fest which rehashes scenes from Jurassic Park (dinosaurs chasing humans, bigger dinos eating smaller ones) and some other cheesy flicks with those disgusting bugs and monsters. The action sequences weren't as exhilarating as those in LOTR (Battles at Helms Deep & Minas Tirith), but credit must still be given to Peter Jackson and his special effects crew for the KK vs T.rex sequence which was both hilarious and technically well-executed. The part where Ann performed tricks for KK was also pretty memorable.
Aik joon summed up the concluding part pretty well - very few lines. In fact, too few. Most of what you see is beauty and the beast interacting through their facial expressions and the occasional growling by Kong, and laughing/screaming by Ann. The mindless destruction caused by Kong during his attempt to find Ann gets boring after a while, and the Kong-chase-car sequence is pretty much rehased material as well. The saving grace was the last 15 minutes or so, which I will leave you to see for yourself, since I have posted too many spoilers already.
And finally, Jack Black (playing Carl) and oscar-winner Adrien Brody both delivered disappointing performances. I still prefer Black in his comedy roles, though I can't really pinpoint what was lacking in his performance in KK. Brody was reduced to a vase, with little room to show off his acting chops because of his largely one-dimensional character. My only impression of him remains as the guy who refuses to give up searching for Ann, and with very beautiful green eyes (he knows how to fang4 dian4 with his eyes, and there are quite a number of close-ups of his face to show his eyes). I think even the black sergeant and the Jimmy boy had more successful character development. Compare this to LOTR, where each character - Frodo, Sam, Pippin, Merry, Gandalf, Legolas, Gimli, Eowyn, Gollum, Galadriel, Theoden, Denethor, etc. was very well flashed out, and every cast member delivered a sterling performance regardless of the screen time he/she had.
That about sums up what I have to say about the movie. It isn't as bad as I make it sound, but I really thought it is in no way comparable to LOTR. Still, great directing by Peter Jackson considering the mediocre material he's working on (I still can't understand why he's a fan of the original KK).
