Lord of the Yawns

Even for free, Peter Jackson’s KING KONG isn’t worth the admission price.

Jackson could easily cut an hour-and-a-half from this movie — and, in doing so, perform a service for all of mankind. But I suspect that even at half the running time,  KING KONG would still be an insanely dull and pointless remake (seven hours into the movie, my daughter leaned over to me and asked "Are we there yet?").

The special effects are amazing, I will give Jackson that, but no amount of CGI wizardry can make up for the failings of the story, dialogue and characters.  All the actors, particularly Jack Black, seem completely lost, unsure what they are supposed to be playing. But you can’t really blame the actors. You have to blame the writer/director. The characters aren’t nearly as fleshed out,   interesting, or believable as the CGI monsters. At least you understand why the dinosaurs and insects are doing what they’re doing. During the ordeal, I  also wondered about my own motivation — what the hell was I still doing in the theater? But against all my better judgment, and the pleading of my loved ones, I stayed. I endured.

The movie isn’t even good enough to wow a ten-year-old.  I know,  because my ten-year-old told me so. 

"Spongebob Squarepants is a lot more fun," she said as we finally fled the theater, "and shorter, too."

14 thoughts on “Lord of the Yawns”

  1. I went in with diminished expectations, and I wound up liking it a lot. Sure, the first hour is a little slow; sure, the movie is long. But there are a bunch of great sequences and the Kong-Ann love story works well. There was a lot of applause at the end of the movie too, so I’m not a total aberration.
    So… chalk this up as being one of those movies that a lot of people are going to like a lot, and some just don’t. Sorry it didn’t work for you 🙂

    Reply
  2. Okay, yeah, a few things could have been cut out, but I still think it was a good movie. I’ve been arguing this fact because I attempted to look at the underlining thoughts of the movie. It’s not all about the amazing special effects and that there’s a giant monkey running around New York. It’s about the emotions and the psychology of everything.
    But those are my thoughts. If you didn’t like then you don’t have to watch it ever again. There are quite a few movies out there I don’t plan to watch again while others thought they were great. This is a free world and there are other awesome movies to sit down and enjoy.

    Reply
  3. I Haven’t seen it yet so I can’t possibly comment.
    BTW, Lee, can you shed some light on what happened to Point Pleasant? It had a cult following over here in England, and it had just started to get wonderfully creative, when all of a sudden, it stopped appearing on TV, no explanations were given or anything.
    Do you know what happened to it? Did it get cancelled mid-flow?

    Reply
  4. Has anyone ever noticed that KingKong is a somewhat racist movie/subject? At least it seems like that to *me*. For hundreds of years the natives have been sacrificing black girls to the big apes inhabiting the land across the big wall – probably thinking they would eat them. But the apes, being giant gorillas, were of course vegetarians, and so they just played the offerings to death, much like cats with a mouse, I suppose. After ripping off their arms and legs (bodies mutilated like that were found by the dozen by the ship’s crew on their search for Ann), they just threw them away, probably wondering dully what the hell they were meant to do with such feeble playthings. It needed the superior beauty of the blonde, white woman (so the claim of the movie) to make the beast stop and consider. Am I the only one seeing it like that? I remember being a bit flabbergasted by that thought when I saw my first KK movie as a teenager.
    kete

    Reply
  5. Given that the original was made in 1933, I’m not surprised it was racist. This was, after all, the era of Tarzan and other likeminded racial-superiority complexes.
    I think Jackson does an outstanding job in the remake of showing us that Kong’s attachment to Ann starts first as novelty (she is, after all, blonde, and thus unlike the umpteen sacrifices he’s been given), and then she manages to assert herself and intrude on his psyche. She stands up to him. She amuses him. She presents a personality to him, and makes him notice her as a person. A lot of that isn’t simply because she’s a white gal.
    Oh, and I have to lodge yet another opposing opinion to Lee’s. I thought the movie was very well done, to the point that it makes the original seem only a sketch for a finished motion picture. Not once did I look at my watch impatiently. And I (34yo) saw it with my sons, a hyperactive 11yo and a flighty 8yo, who barely moved the whole time and talked about it incessantly for the next 12 hours.

    Reply
  6. Kete is offended by KING KONG but has no problem with kiddie porn. Unfuckingbelieveable.
    These fanfiction whackos have clearly live in an alternate universe.

    Reply
  7. My 10-year-old daughter talked incessantly about it afterwards, too — about how long and dull it was. And she likes just about every movie she sees, no matter how awful it is. The only movie I can recall her disliking before this one was SERENITY.

    Reply
  8. “No one watched it. The show got cancelled after only a handful of episodes.”
    Well, that’s a shame, me and my pals over here thought it was great, a bit slow at the beginning admittedly, but it did pick up a lot after the first few episodes. It seems a shame that Fox seems to be so trigger happy when it comes to cancelling shows. At least over here, the programme makers persevere a lot more.
    Oh well, at least Smallville is still being aired *g*

    Reply
  9. Kete is offended by KING KONG but has no problem with kiddie porn. Unfuckingbelieveable. These fanfiction whackos have clearly live in an alternate universe.
    Max, sweetie, I’m not *offended* by KK – why should I? I’m a blonde, white woman after all. I was just wondering whether I was the only one seeing it that way, given the fact that normally everyone starts howling once something vaguely seeming unPC flimmers over a screen somwehere.
    And I *do* have a problem with kiddie-porn, namely where RL kids are concerned making the same for the consumption of dirty old men. Love stories including erotic moments about virtual characters written by women for the consumption of other women? Not so much.
    kete

    Reply
  10. And, Lee, if your daughter talked about KK or hours – even if to say how boring it was – I daresay she was impressed with it. Most likely she just sensed that you didn’t like it and told you what she thought you wanted to hear.
    kete

    Reply

Leave a Comment