(Why, yes: my wife is away on a business trip. Why do you ask?)
I enjoyed it, but I can see why it didn't break any box-office records (did it manage to break even?). First of all, it's a fun little movie that just happens to be over three hours long. Is there anything that manages to retain its "fun" for more than two hours? I watched the movie in 45 minute clips, which was just about right.
Secondly -- man, does Peter Jackson ever take his material seriously! Just in case we're not on the same page as he is, he gets a big burly black man to explain Conrad's The Heart of Darkness to a pencil-necked white kid, creating for us White-Types-With-The-Liberal-Guilt the single most tension-filled moment in the entire movie. Whew! Thank you, Peter!
Thirdly -- Jackson obviously possesses some voo-doo that excites his actors. Everyone looks like they're having a heap of fun, injecting panache into the hammiest dialogue to hit the screen since Howard The Duck. Especially Naomi Watts, who has the toughest sell. How is it a goofy blonde can fall so hard for an ape? Her answer: don't we all know at least one woman who couldn't let go of a musclebound hothead, just because he knew how to show a girl a good time? And say: wasn't that girl an actress? Consider me sold! That is, until hour number two gradually stretches into ... hour ... number ... Zzzzzz .....
Fourth -- Who wants special effects? I do, I do!! KONG delivers. Overdelivers, actually. There were times when my face was inches away from my rinky-dink TV screen, my eyes squinting to make out some telling detail that would provide clues to a scene's significance. I sure would have appreciated the scale of a proper Silver Screen during those moments. But there were other scenes (I'm thinking particularly of the dinosaur stampede) when the action was so frenetic and layered, I very much doubt I could have followed its general flow in a theatre. When it comes to digital SFX, clearly the industry is still working out the bugs.
Fifth -- the volume. Had I seen this movie in the theatre, I would have left with my ears bleeding. Who needs the grief?
And finally: throw all the above into a movie that is over three hours long, and you're better off watching it at home.
3 comments:
I, too, have a soft spot for the knuckle-dragging variety of men.
I love the smell of testosterone in the morning...
*giggle*
It behooves me to excavate the subtext here: my wife was an actress both when we met and when we married. Once an actress, always an actress. So ... *whuffle, snort*!
I didn't know that! I could have acted, but Hollywood failed to see my potential.
Damn, my nose keeps knocking into the monitor...
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