I finally saw King Kong this weekend, and my feeling towards it was that it was neither horrible, nor great. In terms of special effects, it's quite an achievement. Peter Jackson has definitely cemented his place as this generation's George Lucas. Unfortunately, like Lucas, Jackson has a lot to learn about writing scenes with human actors. I found just about every piece of dialogue in King Kong laughable, and not in a good way. It's a sad state of affairs when Jackson can make a giant CGI gorilla seem more human and believable than a cast of real, and in some cases award-winning, human actors.

The film had more problems than I expect from Peter Jackson, but less problems than I expect from a King Kong film! I mean seriously, a love story featuring a giant ape has to be one of the worst film concepts ever to be brought to mainstream cinema! The action sequences were some of the best ever put to film, and Kong is without a doubt the greatest cgi creature ever made. Some of the dialogue was bad, a couple of scenes were horribly cheesy, and I even spotted a couple of technical issues. Giving the final line of the film to Jack Black was a huge, huge, massive mistake that derailed any feeling of poignancy as I left the theatre. I wanted to feel compassion and sympathy for Kong at the end, a noble creature dying away from it's homeland, but I was left with the bad taste of a poorly delivered, cheesy line from the worst actor in the film(who was fine up until then). Even a voiceover at that point would have been an improvement. Or give the line to Driscoll, seeing as Brody's performance was far and away superior to any one else's, yet the character was sadly underused. I had a great time at the theatre, was on the edge of my seat several times, and will consider picking it up on DVD when released. However, this was Peter Jackson's most flawed film, though since it was a pet project for him, and likely made during his only opportunity to get the kind of budget necessary to make it, I'll give him a free pass on this one, and expect his next one to be brilliant.

I liked it. I like monkeys. I like grisly death.
If you want a really bad film go watch 'The Evil beneath Loch Ness'.

Kong has it's flaws, but I didn't expect art-house cinema, I went to see a load of idiots get butchered by dinosaurs, insects and a giant gorilla. Kong himself was good. I loved the dinosaur fight and the horrible leech things. Am I supposed to judge this film on it's artistic merits? Of course not! - It was fun.

If I want to go chin-scratching I'll watch 'Eraserhead'.

One of my all time favorite films.

Have you checked out the extended cut? There's more dinosaur action, a giant, carnivorous fish & you see more from the soldiers point-of-view! Pretty cool!

Right now, my son is going through a "dinosaur phase" & he loves the Brontosaurus stampede & Kong VS 3 V-Rex's* fight. I have to admit, I love the island adventure the most out of the entire movie, but it's hard to beat the standoff at the top of the Empire State Building !



*Ha! My friends hate when I call them that, but according to Peter Jackson, they aren't T-Rex's. They've evolved into animals more suited to live on the island. He named them a really long word that begins with a V, so for short, V-Rex.