Kong

Let's be honest, that movie could have done without the beginning or the end. Hay says it follows the original very well, but I don't remember the original so much. The special effects were pretty good, but I'm quite confident that if a giant gorilla beast was flailing me around while he ran through the jungle I'd either pass out or be dead. C'mon, no matter how gently he was holding Ann, he's just way too strong.

I thought Adrien Brody was expendable in this movie, but much to my chagrin Peter Jackson did not share my sentiment. I think it would have been better if a major character other than Kong were killed in the movie. Don't get me wrong, lots of folks die, just not anyone who deserves to or who would have contributed to the sadness of the film.

During the ending I kept chanting in my head, "die already!" because the movie is 3 freakin' hours and I was tired of it, but when Kong finally does slump over and fall off the Empire State building it's a little sad. Didn't make me cry, though.

One surprise for me: Naomi Watts is now a power actress in my eyes. She is mostly silent when communicating with Kong, yet her eyes say everything. She reminds me of Nicole Kidman and (somebody big who I can't quite put my finger on) rolled into one. Brilliant job.

I did not think Jack Black completely pulled off his comedic villain role. I believed it until almost the end of the jungle scene, then he turned completely immoral and I just couldn't believe it anymore.

If you go into this movie expecting to find the answers to "why" then I'm afraid you'll be sorely disappointed. Some things just aren't meant to be explained, such as why the natives live on that island, why they are quite so gd evil as they are, why there are dinosaurs, why Kong exists there but apparently all his family is dead (even if he had to knock up his mom, at least the lineage could have continued), why anyone thought it was a good idea to chain up Kong with "chrome steel" in front of a live audience, ... the list goes on.

I'll give this movie 3 grades:

beginning B-
middle A
ending C+

One thing that was very distracting that had nothing to do with the movie itself: For some reason a family of about 10 people kept getting up during the movie to leave and come back. No idea what that was about, unless it was a family smoke session? They left about 6 or 7 times in various configurations of the group. Oh, and talked through the whole thing. Loudly. I'm pretty sure the people in front of me were shooting daggers at them with their eyes.