King of the Kong - a movie nite out.

I had a movie night out with my sweetheart yesterday night. It was a great night. We both needed some leisure time ...

To both of us, King Kong is one of the most anticipated film of the year. Despite the rather pricey ticket price {okay, it isn't so bad, but with the price of ($8.50 x 2 tickets), it's equivalent to the monthly *NETFLIX price [3 DVDs at a time] that we are paying.}, we've decided to go for it anyhow as this is one of the largest production so far, and it's Peter Jackson's work. We figured that it won't be bad. So, a King Kong night out it is.

Warning: Possible spoiler ahead.

The movie. Hmmmm, where shall I begin. I am sure you have at least heard a little about the plot, so I am not gonna elaborate here. In brief, this is a movie that is about 'Master showman Carl Denham has fallen on hard times due to the depression, and mounts an expedition to the mysterious Skull Island to find another showpiece. He takes along adventurer Jack Driscoll and the down-on-her-luck gorgeous blonde Ann Darrow with him to spice up the show. Arriving on the island, they discover it is home to gigantic beasts like dinosaurs, and ruling over all is Kong, a 30 foot tall gorilla. The natives kidnap Ann as a sacrifice for Kong, and the other crew members head into the dangerous island interior to rescue her.' Source.

Basically, I would like to separate the movie (a 3 hrs and 07 min production) into 3 parts, each part corresponds with the hours. I like the first part. I thought the 'old New York' scenes were done brilliantly. The building, the costumes, the crowd, the broadway, the automobiles, the streets, the Time Square, the people, the lights, the high-rise-building-in-the-making etc., simply wowed me. I was astonished by their attention to details. The second part, is where all the adventures come in when they are in the Skull Island. The doovoo natives, the wild and horror primitive world, various type of prehistoric dinosaurs, etc., everything you ever wanted from an adventure-fantasy film. As for the final part, everything is back to NYC, where some of the classic scenes (like King Kong climbing the Empire State Building) would be shown.

To be honest with you, I don't enjoy the second part of the movie as much. I just think that it is unseemly long, and too elaborative. No, don't get me wrong, I am a big fan of LOTR 1-3, and I could watch the entire series over and over again; I feel that the horror part of the King Kong was a bit draggy. Chiller scenes kept coming in, up till a point that I felt so tired of it. There were too many creatures to fight, and so many crew members of the ship had to sacrifice their lives. Well, this part just isn't my cup of tea.

Having said that, King Kong is still a great movie to watch. In my dim view, Peter Jackson made everything up at the final part of the movie. Oh well, I was so moved by the exquisite interactions between the beauty and the beast, until I shed some tears. I guess inevitably everyone would end up falling in love with the beast too. And the classic dialog of Carl Denham ' Oh, no. It wasn't the airplanes. It was Beauty killed the Beast.' ended the movie beautifully.

Now I am inspired to rent the 1933 and 1976 versions of King Kong. Let's see how will they turn out.


* Netflix is special DVD rental service offered in US, whereby you order your DVD online, and they'll mail the DVD to you. Once you're done with the movie, you mail it back.