sw’as

At the end of a really packed weekend, I went to see Kind Kong last night. I learnt three things:

• Just how overboard a movie can go
• Three V-Rexs are no match for the Kong
• Kong is massively sexually frustrated (and very lonely).

For an excellent review of the movie^[1], you should head over to Binary Bonsai. But I have to disagree with Michael on one fundamental point; this is NOT the best movie of the year. The major problem being the level of realism. Although I’m not talking about the graphics, the animation in this movie was incredible. Kong himself was spectacular and the graphics in general were awesome, a computer animators wet dream.

The Two Types of Unrealistic

There are two types of unrealistic in movies, one I can handle, the other is what ruined King Kong.

The first type of unrealistic is the “band of movie makers and rough and tough sailors (including a beautiful woman) travel to an as yet (mostly) un-discovered island where they briefly battle the natives, who capture the beautiful woman and offer her to as a sacrifice, before going on to battle the local wildlife in an attempt to rescue the woman and, in the process, discover a gigantic ape which they capture and bring back to New York (to the protests of the beautiful woman who has fallen in love with the ape)”^[2] thing. That bit, which is clearly a tad unrealistic, I’m fine with. That’s just a good story line and there are many, many good movies that require the audience to suspend their disbelief. It’s the other type of unrealistic that bothers me.

The other type of unrealistic basically involves what actually happens to the characters throughout the movie. Primarily, my problem is with how many times each and every character on the island should have died but didn’t. For example, how the hell did anyone survive the stampede scene? Did anybody else think “shaken baby syndrome” when Kong was running through the jungle with Anne?

Conclusion

For me, there were just too many times when I found myself laughing at things that weren’t meant to be laughed at. There were a few scenes I could have done without and a few elements to the story I thought were un-neccesary or out of place. As I said, I basically agree with everything in Michael’s review over at Binary Bonsai, except all the parts where he says what a great movie it is. To sum up, I’d say it’s worth seeing. In fact, it’s worth seeing just for the animation - the whole storyline thing is just a bonus. One thing it has done is really make me want to see the original.

1. I agree with almost everything Michael said. [↩]
2. Yes, I know this is a bloody terrible synopsis of the movie; luckily that’s not what it’s supposed to be. [↩]