King Kong - Thread

[Vemsie]

Pole-vaulting native nutter, man. Possibly the craziest thing I've ever seen.

This film blew me away harder than any other film has in my adult life. 5 out of 5 sells it short. Kong slipping about on the ice, man

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I should have voted for you as the best non-Supermember instead of that Ulala guy

[Despin]

Hey there.

"Pole-vaulting native nutter, man. Possibly the craziest thing I've ever seen."

Pffft! They nicked that from Tremors.

Despin out.

[Vemsie]

Hey there.

"Pole-vaulting native nutter, man. Possibly the craziest thing I've ever seen."

Pffft! They nicked that from Tremors.

Despin out.

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No, they haven't. If you read the chapter 'Skull Islanders' in 'The World of Kong - a Natural History of Skull Island' you'll know exactely why they pole-vault.

[Tequila]

No, they haven't. If you read the chapter 'Skull Islanders' in 'The World of Kong - a Natural History of Skull Island' you'll know exactely why they pole-vault.

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Hah, Vemsie's got the knowledge licked.

[Lovelyman]

I just got back from seeing it. I thought it was far too long.

Every single scene seemed to be drawn out for as long as possible.

None of the characters were likeable.

4/10.

[Matt Defis]

I think this is the greatest film i have ever seen or am ever going to see in my entire life. I'm a massive star wars fan, i mean huge star wars fan with Empire being my number 1 film of all time, but the mighty kong has come along and knocked empire from the number 1 slot and perched itself way up high on the number 1 perch. Simply awe inspiring.

[Lazychu]

I just got back from seeing it. I thought it was far too long.

Every single scene seemed to be drawn out for as long as possible.

None of the characters were likeable.

4/10.

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Ehh?

Sure you didn't go and see EpIII instead?

[Lovelyman]

Yup - I think this was worse. At least I spent half of Episode III in hysterics.

[Goose]

It's done about $14M for Friday and $30M since opening on Wednesday. Friday's take was more in line but it's still well below what was expected. This isn't looking like a big opening weekend. At this rate it'll be lucky to take $50M for the five days.

[cassidy]

I think this is the greatest film i have ever seen or am ever going to see in my entire life. I'm a massive star wars fan, i mean huge star wars fan with Empire being my number 1 film of all time, but the mighty kong has come along and knocked empire from the number 1 slot and perched itself way up high on the number 1 perch. Simply awe inspiring.

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[11 Herbs 'n' Spices]

It's done about $14M for Friday and $30M since opening on Wednesday. Friday's take was more in line but it's still well below what was expected. This isn't looking like a big opening weekend. At this rate it'll be lucky to take $50M for the five days.

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I was expecting a bigger marketing push in the run up to the release. I don't think I saw anything other than the teaser trailer shown at cinemas, and I've been going to the cinema about once a week on average. Even then, that teaser was shown way back in the summer with War Of The Worlds. i ahven't seen it advertised on TV as much as I thought either. Shit loads of X360 ads and ones for fine fragrances but not much Kong.

Saying all that, it can't be that people aren't aware that it's out, it's featured in almost every mag around. I'm sure word of mouth will help once people hear how great Kong himself is and the emotional impact he has.

Wonder what effect (if any) this will have on studio interference with Jackson's later work. It was he who pushed and got the longer running time. It'd be a shame to see the takings affect his creative control down the line.

I very much doubt it will flop and will eventually recoup its budget theatrically. I think the complete weekend takings will be a better indicator.

[Lovelyman]

Maybe people realise it's a bit shit.

[11 Herbs 'n' Spices]

Maybe people realise it's a bit shit.

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To come to that conclusion, wouldn't they actually have to see to it first, adding to the box office takings in the process?

A slight flaw in your logic.

Anyone who walks away from King Kong proclaiming it's shit is either craving attention, or is just plain deluded as to what to expect from a film called King Kong.

[Vemsie]

Maybe people realise it's a bit shit.

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Word of mouth is actually pretty damn good, not just on this forum.

Weren't you also the only guy on this forum (and probably the world) who called Wallace & Gromit shit? And Batman Begins? You just seem to dislike everything.

I can understand people not liking it. It's a flawed film. But it's anything but shit.

None of the characters were likable? I loved Kong and Ann. Brody seemed a decent guy as well.

[:mediadavid:]

Its an amazing film, I loved it. I've seen it twice now. However, both times I suffered the curse of the modern cinema experience. The first time I saw it, there was a gang of kids behind me. They weren't as bad as they could have been, and always stayed on the side of the line that would have made me go and complain, but it did reduce the immersion somewhat and I decided to go back and experience it better, this time in the daytime.

This time was far worse. It wasn't that people were talking, it was quite good despite a few young children. its that a twat next to me was LAUGHING almost all the way through the film. At first it started quite slowly, and I thought he was laughing at the occasionally corny lines etc, but when we got to the island he started laughing , and didn't stop till the end of the film. I eventually realised his laughter was genuine hillarity, he really thought the film was hillarious and was meant to be funny! The natives dancing?funny. the brontosorous pile up? funny. the bug pit?Hillarious! King kong punching a t-rex? Guffaw worthy!

You get the picture. It was excruciating, especially since you can't say "excuse me, do you mind not finding the film so funny?". It completely ruined any sense of pathos, horror or tension, when this moron is laughing at such hillarious images as Kong being hit in the face with a bottle.

grrr. At least he didn't laugh when Kong died, if he had I'd have flipped out and killed him.

[Lazychu]

grrr. At least he didn't laugh when Kong died, if he had I'd have flipped out and killed him.

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Unbelievably, that happened when I saw it. ....

[superfunk]

I've never understood the 'laughing maniacally' through the entire film thing. Maybe they're a bit unhinged. Maybe they need to show everyone around them that they're enjoying the film and laughing, while totally inappropriate, is the most obvious way of showing this?

I often find it's blokes trying to impress their girlfriends as if to say 'Yes! I got that bit! Aren't I clever darling?'

People are mental.

DVDs at home for me from now on.

[Andsom]

Hey there.

"Pole-vaulting native nutter, man. Possibly the craziest thing I've ever seen."

Pffft! They nicked that from Tremors.

Despin out.

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Tremors didn't invent pole-vaulting.

I just got back from seeing it. I thought it was far too long.

Every single scene seemed to be drawn out for as long as possible.

None of the characters were likeable.

4/10.

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Wrong.

It was superb. Absolutely superb. The New York stuff was absolutely breathtaking. I loved it.

[Lovelyman]

Here we go then. I found this review on the net and it sums up my feelings nicely.

In remaking "King Kong," Peter Jackson added 90 minutes to the running time and nothing to the experience. It doesn't matter that his new film can't take the place of the original -- no one should expect that, and that's not the problem. The problem is that, just on its own terms, the film is overlong, repetitive and lacks impact. Even if this were the first gorilla-in-love movie ever made, audiences would come away vaguely dissatisfied, suspecting there was an intriguing idea buried somewhere in here, but it didn't quite come off.

Three hours. Make that 188 minutes, each one longer than the next, until just the thought of the Empire State Building is enough to evoke a warm, cozy feeling. Yet there are lots of good ideas in the film, evident in the inventive ways in which Jackson and company expanded on the material. With a little less expanding and about an hour of cutting, Jackson might have brought this off. He had the cast. He had a respect for and an understanding of the story, plus all the money and all the ability in the world. But he got lost in his box of paints and couldn't stop throwing images onto the canvas. Or to put it another way, he got lost in the jungle, literally.

Rather than updating the story, Jackson sets "King Kong" in its own time, the early 1930s, then makes good use of the era. He brings back a time of naive entertainment, lavish stage shows and poverty, a time when the world was still mysterious enough that the existence of an undiscovered island with hidden wonders seemed possible. The opening sequence, an early '30s montage of streets and cars, hungry people, and colorful vaudeville acts, is filmed in such a way as to suggest the early two-strip Technicolor process, and it's beautiful to behold. So is Naomi Watts, with her yellow marcelled hair and blue alert eyes, the ideal evocation of that era's new American woman.

Ann Darrow is a vaudeville hoofer, struggling to stay afloat, and while some of these early scenes have a whiff of the cutting-room floor -- they play like the deleted scenes on a DVD -- they maintain interest, thanks to Watts' commitment and to the rich environment in which Jackson places her. Indeed, even when the movie goes bad, hours (and hours and hours) later, it still feels like a privilege to look at Times Square circa 1932 and at the traffic on Herald Square. For anyone with an affinity for this period, this is as close to a time machine as you'll find.

Jack Black plays Carl Denham, the role originated by Robert Armstrong, a film director intent on making his fortune by selling spectacle to movie patrons at 25 cents a ticket. In the original "King Kong," Denham was a figure of grudging admiration: During the Depression, any individualist with a money-making angle was considered OK, even criminals. But in the new version, Black portrays him as a deceitful opportunist, scrappy and likable, but unevolved and sleazy. That's a smart adjustment, and it's one that Black runs with: Audiences of the 1930s identified with con men, but today's audiences identify with the conned.

A chance meeting and a casting crisis leads Denham to star Ann in his new film, and they all -- cast and crew -- take off one night heading for an island in the east.

Here Jackson introduces a host of characters, too many. Jackson is intent on giving a face and a history to most of the crew, but all this does is clutter the central story, which is all about the clash between love and greed, and nature and commerce. Anything that's not about Denham, or Ann or Kong is not merely extra, as Jackson might have it. It's lard. It's fat clogging the arteries of the movie.

What's more, the audience can't be fooled. Even those who've never seen the original "King Kong" know where this ship is heading and can tell the essential from the pointless.

After a promising opening, the movie slows to a grind after about 40 minutes, before the cast has even arrived at Skull Island. At this point, we're still a full half-hour from our first meeting with Kong. Once Kong is introduced, the film picks up again. Andy Serkis, who played Gollum in "Lord of the Rings," plays Kong, and through a similar complicated technological process, the ape is given facial expressions, a personality and a soul.

The scenes between Ann and Kong have more depth and range than anything Fay Wray ever dreamed of, and yet it's on the island that "King Kong" completely falls apart. Instead of just sticking with Ann and Kong, Jackson just piles on the action, playing with his computer forever, forcing the audience to look over his shoulder.

There's a dinosaur stampede, several giant spider invasions and an attack by creatures that look like angry penises with teeth. The audience is invited to witness peril and mourn the deaths of characters no one cares about. I didn't clock it, but at least an hour is spent on the island, and it's the same action repeated over and over: There's a monster, certain doom, a surprising escape. At one point, King Kong fights off three T-Rexes with one hand, while holding Ann in his other like an ice cream cone. Even that goes on too long.

The unrelenting computer-animated action suffocates what seems to have been the movie's main purpose, to expand on the Kong-Ann relationship.

The scene in which Ann realizes she trusts him and climbs into his hand willingly is touching and an enriching addition to the Kong legend.

But it comes too late, and it comes with a price: The terror of the final sequence, of Kong's rampage through New York, is obliterated once Kong is fixed in our minds as a romantic rather than a dangerous force of nature.

The issues are lost, the ambiguities and wider implications are gone. We're back in "Mighty Joe Young" land, watching three hours of a sad incident involving a big gorilla.

[Amanda]

Hey up.

I think Peter Jackson could have cut out the Jamie Bell subplot stuff to improve the running length somewhat. But that said, it never seemed to drag. The scenes that took their time (eg the kong/anne scenes) were usually the ones that were the best. That said, I doubt I could sit through this movie again without drinking half a bottle of coke first, my eyes just get tired after a bit.

Would cutting out the Jamie Bell stuff and editing half an hour or so out of the movie make it a better film? Doubtful. I'm struggling to think of how this movie could have been better. The last 20 minutes gave me some serious vertigo. The sfx in the last 20 minutes were amazing, considering most of it was cgi. How cool was that slow motion shot as King Kong fell down the Empire State Building? Woah.

Oh yeah, I heard people dissing the effects in the movie. I totally disagree because the effects here ranged from excellent to perfect. I'd heard the brontosaurus stampede had some shit effects so I watched that bit more intently, and there wasn't anything wrong with it. The dinosaur effects in Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park 2 are more realistic but that doesn't make King Kongs effects any less stunning.

Oh yeah, one dodgy effect was the greenscene use when Carl Denham was filming that scene on the ship deck. But that's all. Besides, I thought it kinda looked like a throwback to the 50's style sfx with screens, so it was FINE.

Anyway: great movie. 9/10. Oh yeah, those native people were scary as hell, and Naomi Watts is a damn good actress, her performance totally lifted the movie. And Jack Black and Adrien Brody were good as usual.

Finally, I wish King Kong was real, because he was a great character in this and I liked him.

[Lovelyman]

I would like to go to skull island.

[Vemsie]

several giant spider invasions

He must have watched a different King Kong.

[Amanda]

I would like to go to skull island.

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Nah, the freaky natives are just a bit too mental.

This movie reminded me of Jurassic Park 2, what with the bringing T-Rex back to the US and it getting loose and all.

Horribleman, I think you said you didn't like any of the characters - but what about that movie star guy? He was excellent.

[Vemsie]

7 Films in Competition for the FX Oscar

Source: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced the seven films in consideration for Achievement in Visual Effects for the 78th Academy Awards®.

The films are listed below in alphabetical order:

Batman Begins

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

King Kong

Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith

War of the Worlds

Fifteen-minute clip reels from each of the seven films will be screened for the Visual Effects Award Nominating Committee on Wednesday, January 25. At this screening the members will vote to nominate three of the seven films for Oscar® consideration.

All nominations for the 78th Academy Awards will be announced on Tuesday, January 31, 2006, at 5:30 a.m. PST, in the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements for 2005 will be presented on March 5, 2006, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland®, and televised live by the ABC Television Network beginning at 5 p.m. PST.

Source: ComingSoon.net

So, which do you think will be nominated eventually and which one should nick it?

I'm rooting for the ape obviously.

[Amanda]

So, which do you think will be nominated eventually and which one should nick it?

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I think King Kong, War of the Worlds and Star Wars Episode 3 will be nominated. King Kong will probably win.

[Lovelyman]

Nah, the freaky natives are just a bit too mental.

This movie reminded me of Jurassic Park 2, what with the bringing T-Rex back to the US and it getting loose and all.

Horribleman, I think you said you didn't like any of the characters - but what about that movie star guy? He was excellent.

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Actually, yeah he was ok. Is Jack Black gay? not that it matters, but he seemed a bit camp in the movie!

[Lovelyman]

Gotta say, I agree the effects were tremendous. Although the people did look quite 2d when they were in amongst all the dinosaur legs.

And King Kong looked weird when making noises - The noises didn't seem to come from him (kind of like you can tell when a singer is miming even if they are doing it well).

[Amanda]

I don't know, I guess I'm not very good at telling bad CGI from good CGI because I thought the dinosaur stampede looked great.

The best cgi in the movie I thought was the scenes of Jack Black running through the streets of 1930's New York, I thought the cgi background of the skyscrapers and that was totally 100% photorealistic.

How much of the movie was filmed with greenscreens - did they recreate lots of old New York for it? Did they actually film scenes on a boat in the sea or did they just do a few distant shots of the boat and have the actors do all the filming in a soundstage (like in Titanic).

I thought the cgi that was a bit hollow for me was those obviously CGI shots swooping over Skull Island, they looked too much like an FMV from a game.

[Vemsie]

How much of the movie was filmed with greenscreens - did they recreate lots of old New York for it? Did they actually film scenes on a boat in the sea or did they just do a few distant shots of the boat and have the actors do all the filming in a soundstage (like in Titanic).

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No, they created a fair few shops and stuff, as well lots of interiors. But I've read there are about 90.000 virtual buildings, including the Empire State Building. They never shot on sea either. WETA also created 200 creatures. Less than 20 were used in the actual movie.

The production diaries deal with this stuff in detail. It's a good watch.

Speaking of which...

The final one...

[Sabreman]

One of the problems they always seem to have with CGI humans is depicting weight. Look at the scenes at the end of the Bronto stampede - Jamie Bell floating over the collapsing ground. Unfortunately his feet are where your eyes are focused, because that's where the action is. It's all minor quibbles certainly, but it does go to show that there's quite a way to go yet.