TALKBACK: King Kong (2005)

[klen7]

[lhb412]

^ I think Rush Hour reruns still have Jackie Chan as the biggest martial arts guy in the minds of young folks in the US.

Maybe if Donny Yen keeps being in every movie for a while longer...

[Outkaster]

Donnie is a nice guy but doesn't have the charisma. I have been in the martial arts 37 years and you can kind of tell. He kind of didn't get into the movies in the US the same way.

[jellydonut25]

I just had my most enjoyable viewing of this since theaters. It was my first and likely last ever viewing of the extended cut, which I felt added nothing but length, which the movie absolutely does not need. Excess is the film's biggest problem. Editing could have fixed so much. Not everything...Ann is TOO sympathetic towards Kong (it's okay for her to be against him being hurt, but she should never walk lovingly towards him down a NYC street so they can have a date in Central Park), there's some really bad dialogue that's largely unnecessary or just corny in a way that the rest of the movie isn't and it's jarring, and Jack Black is horrible as Denham, though I'm not 100% sure where to lay that blame; he's often acting directly into the camera, is that a directorial decision? Is he just mis-cast? Should Jackson have taken some of the sleaze out of the role (because he's a real jerk here) when he cast Black and let Denham be more fun or should they have just gone with a different actor? In any case, something about Denham is very off. But ultimately excess is the biggest problem. The VRex fight would have been amazing except the trapeze part, the spider pit would have been perfect except Jimmy shoots all those wetas off Adrien Brody with his eyes closed, the Brontosaurus stampede is a good idea as opposed to a carnivorous brontosaurus, but then you have guys punching raptors too...pretty much every single scene has something, or a series of things, that's just too much. It's all one step too far.

I'm actually gonna actively seek out some fan edits, because there's a good movie in here, it's just not 3+ hours long.

[Gwangi]

[lhb412]

The brontosaurus is the scariest part of Kong '33. It rising up out of the water/mists freaked me the hell out as a kid.

[mr.negativity]

[Outkaster]

[tbeasley]

Having completed my Kong marathon before Skull Island I can say I still enjoy Peter Jackson's King Kong. If there's anything the '33 film has over it it's brevity, but at the same time the '05 film is an excellent expansion of that original story. Sure it's 3 1/2 hours long but there's more than enough to appreciate. They really don't make big movies like this anymore. I genuinely enjoyed Skull Island but for me Jackson's film is on a whole other level.

For anyone that enjoys the film I couldn't recommend more the recent Blu-ray edition... it has everything from previous DVD releases. The behind the scenes documentaries are as thorough as they can be, stuff you don't see anymore, and you get a great sense of the backstory they came up for Skull Island and Kong. Just really cool stuff!