My King Kong review

Cosmo hooked us up with some pre-premiere tickets for Kong, so we went to see it. How was it, you ask me? Well, I’m gonna tell you. And those that didn’t ask, well, I will just ignore that and tell you regardless. Because that’s what I do. I ramble on…

Well, it’s long. And the fact that this is the first thing that comes to mind is not a good sign. Let me put it like this: I’m glad I didn’t have to pay for it. Yes, Kong looks great. You will forget that he is just a CGI animation. He feels and looks real. You will have no trouble believing that he could actually exist somewhere on a hidden island. You can almost smell a banana when he is on screen. (Okay, this might have just been that dude next to me, that for some reason brought out a banana in the middle of the movie and started eating it.) But the problem is that you don’t really care for any of the characters. There is no back story to Kong, and the fact that he is visually believable is not really enough. During the movie, I never really rooted for this guy. The same with other characters. The love story between Jack and Ann is hardly apprehensible and the movie does little to make it believable. There is no scene that would define their relationship. In this regard it reminds me a lot of Titanic. That too, was a movie I went to see with very low expectations, but unlike with Kong, I was pleasantly surprised. The love story between Leo and Kate was a centerpiece of the movie, and it was the scenes between them (like the famous “King of the world” scene) and the chemistry between them, that made it all work. Nothing like that is in King Kong.

As a result, the movie feels dull and way too long. Sure, it’s a visual spectacle, and there is a lot to look at (though the shower scene where Kong washes the girl under the waterfall, is, to Cosmo’s great disappointment, missing). Additionally, some scenes are straight out ridiculous, like the dinosaurs gang-bang scene (you’ll know what I mean when you see it…). In those parts, that are clearly there just to show off, the movie is relying too much on the CGI, with little reason from the script. And exactly those scenes feel redundant and make the movie unnecessary long in the end. Speaking of the script, it is scattered with plot holes, that just cost the movie credibility. So, by the time they get Kong on the ship to New York, cleverly skipping the part of “how the fuck did they get him on that ship”, and magically, via a cut suddenly appear in New York, you will be begging the movie to “just get to the end, damnit”. And, sadly my friends, as Cosmo noted, by that time you are only in the middle of the freaking movie…

So, that’s it folks. Kong is not King. Because after a great movie, you will wanna watch it again. With Kong, you’ll be just happy that it’s over. That’s why I’m gonna go watch Serenity again. Because that, my friends, is truly a great movie. (Which btw. comes out on DVD in a few days, and if you haven’t yet, you should definitely get it now. I said, now! Hush, hush…).