king kong and why old people hate it
i saw king kong with my family the day after christmas as part of my sister's 18th birthday celebrations. has anybody else seen it? what did you think? the divide in my family was astounding. anybody under the age of 55 - that is, my brother, my sister and myself - completely adored the movie. everybody 55 and up - my parents and my mother's parents - thought it was a wretched, wretched film and was basically a masturbatory exercise in special effects for peter jackson.
i agreed a little bit with that sentiment - there are at least two or three scenes where the special effects seem to go on, and on, and on, just for the sake of showing us what amazing creatures jackson can design; at least 30 minutes could have been effectively cut from the film (but who the hell is going to tell peter jackson to cut down his film?). but the story was genuine; the acting was amazing (naomi watts literally glows. there are so many loving close ups on her, and she's really heart-wrenching in the scenes with kong. it's even more amazing to think about it knowing she's reacting to a green screen. adrien brody is good, too. i have never seen the pianist, but in every one of his public appearances after his oscar win, he came off as a complete shallow hollywoodesque jackass. A DIET COKE COMMERCIAL, BRODY?!?! but in the film, he has real gravitas and is very winning and all noble-like. and kind of weirdly hot. huh. as for jack black: he was okay, but he can't really act that well. same shtick and expressions over and over. and, oh yeah - the ship captain is HOTT); kong is AMAZING. his facial expressions are wonderful and the rest of the special effects will do their best to blow you away. i was particularly breathless during the brontosaurus stampede. the score is gorgeous, as well. it's a movie movie - you know? like, king kong is why people still bother going to out to theaters.
but no. the geezers in my family would have none of it. and i can't for the life of me figure out why. i thought maybe the length, running over 3 hours, could have something to do with it - but i'm officially the Andrews with the shortest attention span, and it didn't bother me a whit. it was all-around agreed that the acting was overall superb. in the end, it seems the special effects, and their potential overuse, turned my grandparents and parents off. but DON'T THEY LOVE THE FUTURE?!?!1
i really just don't get it.
Comments
maybe the special effects/peter jackson roller-coaster-ride direction made them dizzy. they made me dizzy. But I really liked it, and so did my 56-year-old mother. I agree, the effects were excessive in certain scenes, but they were so impressive! Usually these movies have parts that I find annoyingly computerized-looking but this one looked really good. i thought jack black was completely wrong for his part, I just don't think he was old enough or a good enough actor for that role. It was a fun movie though.
I loved it. I also agree that about 30 minutes could be cut off. I even went to the bathroom when the ship crew first crossed over to the jungle side and I didn't miss much. Have you seen the original (and then there's apparently a 70s remake)? I haven't seen either, so I'm assuming the old folks are partial to those.
that was my brother's theory, but my mom and my dad hadn't seen the original beyond clips. i'm not sure if my grandparents have...
I'm in the "loved it" camp as well. My sister, who is 29, kept saying of the violence, "this is horrible." She was also in absolute misery, desperate to go to the bathroom, but refused to leave as she didn't want to miss anything.
That's a good movie.
Ah, Kong. I admit that my friend B and I saw Kong the other day and had the same opinion. For the record we fall in the 25 - 40 demographic. I too really enjoyed the story and the acting - and I too was a little bored by the action sequences. And I'm not going to be the only one who says this: all people really want is a good story.
The only other thing I want, along with a good story, is a consistent universe. Here are my quibbles with Kong, the movie.
1. Jackson goes through all this trouble to make sure that the 25 foot gorilla acts like a real gorilla, and then ignores the logic of all the other animals in the movie. Why is it that Kong is invulnerable to the bear-trap jaws of 3 T. Rexes ripping the snot out of him, but is then felled by puny machine gun fire later on? More to the point, why do 3 T. Rexes CARE that Kong has this teeny tiny scrap of meat (Naomi Watts)? Why would three loner predators gang up for something that will amount to less than an after dinner mint?
Furthermore, it would have been enough for me to see Kong battle ONE giant pointy toothed Rex. That's a tough battle. But three seems over the top. Even though we're dealing with a 25 foot gorilla, I still demand a plausible universe, and a plausible plot.
2. Maybe a herd of brontasauri would stampede if frightened. But the little raptors tracking them would pick off the slowest and the weakest as quickly as they could and let the rest pass. Predators go for the meal, not the glory. Hey, I grew up on National Geographic specials. Lionesses don't continue running with the antelope just for the hell of it after they've brought down the easiest meal.
3. Surely, if someone who had never fired an automatic weapon before was forced to shoot at giant insects covering his buddy's flailing body, surely SOME of those shots would go through the insect and into the human body. Surely SOME of those shots would miss. This goes back to plausibility. It's hard to stay emotionally invested in a story if it's clear the action has fewer consequences than a video game. Why care if it's clear that NOTHING is ever going to be a real danger? If it's just a visual roller coaster with no sense of risk attached? Sense of risk is what makes the whole thing exciting - because we should either not know what's going to happen (suspense), or know but hope that something else will happen instead (tragedy). We get great suspense at key places in the film - like when Anne has to decide to go on the boat in the first place - and we get great tragedy with the story of Kong and Anne. And that's what's really interesting to people (I believe), and will stay with people longer than the utterly ridiclulous "3 T Rexes swinging in net of vines" thing.
That being said, it is still an awesome movie, BECAUSE the story is so engaging - hey, I saw it twice. I love how all parts of the script underine themes and ideas in the movie. As a writer, the tightness of the ideas just makes me squirm with glee. No dialogue wasted. And the thing is beautiful to watch. I love it that Jackson takes the time to really put us in the time and place of the film and give us a sense of life in that era. It all goes to story, and it's all great. The special effects that really make us feel like we're in New York in the thirties, or sailing to a mysterious island, or engaging emotionally with a 25 foot gorilla, are all put to good use.
But just ease up with the T. Rexes, okay Mr. Jackson?
Sorry. That's an abnormally long rant. Still. I feel better :-)
Post A Comment