King Kong
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j.w. Gilmore
New Member
exleper said:
People will go to see the movie only because they are curious. I am planning to see it tomorrow, even though I know somewhere deep in my heart that it will such.
october_lost
It's not hip any more...
I know this is a tough call, especially through todays spectrum of political correctness, but Peter Jacksons depiction of the natives was inaccurate (Skull Island is based according to the story near Indo-China), lazy and I thought belonged in some long forgotten archived film. I was pretty shocked by this, seems Im in a minority....Dhimmi said:
http://www.slate.com/id/2132093/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/13/AR2005121302031.html
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
It's the best action move I've seen in a long time.
october_lost said:
no, i agree with you totally, especially on the slightly pedantic geographical aspect. i thought it was pretty rank. all the eye- rolling and drums and stuff... i was thinking, wait a minute, it is nearly 2006, isnt it? and it made the presence of the token black guy look doubly so, as if theyd thought, well as long as weve got a black hero we can get away with all this retro bongo- bongo land stuff.
i was really underwhelmed by the whole film- have rechristened it 'kin long. my first thing my mum said when it finished was 'i was wondering when it was going to end 25 minutes after it had begun...' naomi watts was good, and i liked the bit where kong tore shit up in the cinema, and the penis monsters: aces. but otherwise i am very glad that my local kino have installed such very comfy seats.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
skinnyb said:
It's a movie about a movie made in the thirties, about, in part, a tribe that worships a giant monkey. They aren't going to look like the Asante.
han
love is the answer
I thought it was quite good!
The beginning/intro went on for an eternity, but then as soon as they got onto the island I was riveted. I must admit to a few tearful moments, but then I cried at the end of Shrek 2, so there's probably something a bit wrong with me
It didn't come close to LOTR in any way whatsoever, but then nothing Jackson does after that is going to, really.
A good, entertaining action film, but not a classic.
RubberBuccaneer
Hedd Wyn
I really liked the beginning, all the boat stuff, slow boat to China, steam, sweat, unknown alliances, unchartered islands, it had a real feel of films you used to watch when you were young.
october_lost
It's not hip any more...
I understood that, but since the thirties rendition was inaccurate and possibly racist, doesnt Peter Jackson have some obligation to alter the story? Its not as if its entirely accurate with the original is it, and I think the token black guy was a rather mute point IMO...reminds me of Spike Lee's BamboozleJohnny Canuck2 said:
The Groke
hot hail/Paging Dr. Beat
Did anyone else feel that the special effects (come on - it is the only reason to watch the movie, so they had better be something special) were shockingly patchy?
Individually the components comprising the scenes were fantastic: The Dinosaurs, Insects, backrounds and of course, Kong himself.
However; when combined, on many occasions they looked awful.
Two main cases in point:
The running-between-the-Brontosaurus-legs-scene and
practically every scene in the whole movie in which the "Fay Wray" character was in the paws of Kong looked like actors fucking around against a badly blended green screen.
Frankly, many movies from 5-10 years ago manged to look more seamless than this on that kind of "superimposed" shot.
The whole thing seemed a step back from LOTR effects-wise which I found very odd.
Funnily enough, I though the one place it came together better was in the final city scenes - all the shots seemed to work properly then......weird as I would have thought that a city scape with both people and machines as well as both organic and man made backgrounds in the same shot would have been way harder than generic jungle.
Its not really my style to bitch about special effects on the whole - there should be more to a movie IMHO, but, like I said before, the only reason I went to see the thing in the first place was to be blown away by a big dumb visual feast made by a director who has proven his excellence in that area and beautified by SFX teams (WETA & Co.) who seemed to be on top of their game and way ahead in their field if the LOTR trilogy was anything to go by.
Disappointed.
Individually the components comprising the scenes were fantastic: The Dinosaurs, Insects, backrounds and of course, Kong himself.
However; when combined, on many occasions they looked awful.
Two main cases in point:
The running-between-the-Brontosaurus-legs-scene and
practically every scene in the whole movie in which the "Fay Wray" character was in the paws of Kong looked like actors fucking around against a badly blended green screen.
Frankly, many movies from 5-10 years ago manged to look more seamless than this on that kind of "superimposed" shot.
The whole thing seemed a step back from LOTR effects-wise which I found very odd.
Funnily enough, I though the one place it came together better was in the final city scenes - all the shots seemed to work properly then......weird as I would have thought that a city scape with both people and machines as well as both organic and man made backgrounds in the same shot would have been way harder than generic jungle.
Its not really my style to bitch about special effects on the whole - there should be more to a movie IMHO, but, like I said before, the only reason I went to see the thing in the first place was to be blown away by a big dumb visual feast made by a director who has proven his excellence in that area and beautified by SFX teams (WETA & Co.) who seemed to be on top of their game and way ahead in their field if the LOTR trilogy was anything to go by.
Disappointed.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
october_lost said:
First off, where is Skull Island? What kind of people inhabit it?
Since it's imaginary, I think the director has some licence to create an imaginary tribe.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
The Groke said:Did anyone else feel that the special effects (come on - it is the only reason to watch the movie, so they had better be something special) were shockingly patchy?
Individually the components comprising the scenes were fantastic: The Dinosaurs, Insects, backrounds and of course, Kong himself.
However; when combined, on many occasions they looked awful.
Two main cases in point:
The running-between-the-Brontosaurus-legs-scene and
practically every scene in the whole movie in which the "Fay Wray" character was in the paws of Kong looked like actors fucking around against a badly blended green screen.
Frankly, many movies from 5-10 years ago manged to look more seamless than this on that kind of "superimposed" shot.
The whole thing seemed a step back from LOTR effects-wise which I found very odd.
Funnily enough, I though the one place it came together better was in the final city scenes - all the shots seemed to work properly then......weird as I would have thought that a city scape with both people and machines as well as both organic and man made backgrounds in the same shot would have been way harder than generic jungle.
Its not really my style to bitch about special effects on the whole - there should be more to a movie IMHO, but, like I said before, the only reason I went to see the thing in the first place was to be blown away by a big dumb visual feast made by a director who has proven his excellence in that area and beautified by SFX teams (WETA & Co.) who seemed to be on top of their game and way ahead in their field if the LOTR trilogy was anything to go by.
Disappointed.
I thought the running between the legs scene is excellent, including the part where they go around the corner, and start sliding off into the abyss.
Another good one: the t rex in the vines scene.
october_lost
It's not hip any more...
Skull Island is based in Sumatra, according to the film. This means it should be Malay/Indochina inhabitants, instead we get some extras from a Zulu film.....Johnny Canuck2 said:
october_lost said:
But there are tribes around SE Asia who do look more black/african. E.g. on the Andaman Islands.
The Groke
hot hail/Paging Dr. Beat
Johnny Canuck2 said:
Hmm - well as declared above - I thought the scene was good, the individual components of the scene excellent but it looked like it was put together on a Amiga.
I dunno - maybe I am too spoilt and cynical these days.
It will be nice 5-10 years down the line when all movie special effects are indistinguishable from the "real thing" and can be done in anyones bedroom on any standard PC.
Movie makers will be forced once more to make well scripted, well acted films with a great original story rather than just sell the thing on the strength of the FX and those people with the ideas and the skill to make such a movie who would never normally be able to obtain the massive amount of funding required today will be able to knock up professional looking stuff at home and distribute it over the web.
Big
I finally made it into seeing King Kong the other day. My two kids had been frothing at the mouth about seeing this for about a month. King Kong. Now there's a 'big' film right there. Big budget, big screen, big expectations and a big fuck-off monkey.
King Kong almost matches the hype. It is exceptionally big on detail, big on special effects, big on dinosaurs and delivers a big performance from the talented Niaomi Watts. Anyone who saw her in '21 Grams' will know how perfect she was for this role in terms of her ability to act out a range of emotions with her facial expressions and eyes. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for Jack Black. Dunno what substance abuse the Casting Director was going through when they offered him this one.
Anyway ....best part of the film was when King Kong has a fight with a couple of T. Rex's, ends up hanging off the edge of a precipice with one of the dinousaurs clinging onto his leg with its teeth, then falling into a web of twines halfway down the precipice and the girl nearly swinging into one of the T.Rex's jaws a couple of times, and King Kong finally killing the last T.Rex by ripping its jaws open and snapping its face in half. The worst part of the movie was the last line right at the end when the Jack Black character says ..."beauty killed the beast".
If you haven't seen the film yet, don't read that last paragraph.
I finally made it into seeing King Kong the other day. My two kids had been frothing at the mouth about seeing this for about a month. King Kong. Now there's a 'big' film right there. Big budget, big screen, big expectations and a big fuck-off monkey.
King Kong almost matches the hype. It is exceptionally big on detail, big on special effects, big on dinosaurs and delivers a big performance from the talented Niaomi Watts. Anyone who saw her in '21 Grams' will know how perfect she was for this role in terms of her ability to act out a range of emotions with her facial expressions and eyes. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for Jack Black. Dunno what substance abuse the Casting Director was going through when they offered him this one.
Anyway ....best part of the film was when King Kong has a fight with a couple of T. Rex's, ends up hanging off the edge of a precipice with one of the dinousaurs clinging onto his leg with its teeth, then falling into a web of twines halfway down the precipice and the girl nearly swinging into one of the T.Rex's jaws a couple of times, and King Kong finally killing the last T.Rex by ripping its jaws open and snapping its face in half. The worst part of the movie was the last line right at the end when the Jack Black character says ..."beauty killed the beast".
If you haven't seen the film yet, don't read that last paragraph.
RubberBuccaneer
Hedd Wyn
Don't read the last paragraph
That reminds me of when my wife told someone about how the Titanic sunk at the end ... and they didn't know !
That reminds me of when my wife told someone about how the Titanic sunk at the end ... and they didn't know !
Wookey
Muppet is not a slur
I like the line (from the original) but the delivery from Jack Black was lacking.
I've just watched this a second time, and while I did notice a few more holes (the blurring of the lass in the ape's paw, a really dodgy NY elevated rail carriage in the opening scenes) what I really noticed is that Jack Black is really not that good... I found his presentation of the beast in the theatre to be really embarrassed and flimsy, a bit like a ripped negligee.
AllStarMe
Well-Known Member
I didnt think that Jack Black was particularly good in this either, made cringeworthy viewing imo.
Other than that I enjoyed it alot more than I thought I would have, though the blatant holes in certain parts - eg how did they get Kong back to the ship!! - and the over use of CGI did kind of annoy me!! I mean, yea its great what you can do with a computer, but dont over do it!!
Other than that I enjoyed it alot more than I thought I would have, though the blatant holes in certain parts - eg how did they get Kong back to the ship!! - and the over use of CGI did kind of annoy me!! I mean, yea its great what you can do with a computer, but dont over do it!!
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