Movie review: King Kong

I don't usually pay full price to watch a movie in theatres, and King Kong reminded me of why this is.

Being a huge fan of the Lord of the Rings movies, how could I not be interested in watching Peter Jackson's latest production? I mean, it may have been based on a cheesy movie that I never cared enough about to bother watching, but still - I was willing to give Jackson the benefit of the doubt.

But not even an optimistically attitude could make this movie any more than a forgettable CG fest. Flanked fore and aft by half hours of corny tripe, the most interesting parts of the movie are the ones full of expensive looking computer generated dinosaurs and people getting crushed.

It turns out that the most interesting aspects of the movie are the details surrounding it, not the movie itself - the special effects were done by Weta Workshop, of Lord of the Rings (and Narnia!) fame, and they did look top-notch. The big monkey looked real, and the dinosaur/Kong battles were downright exciting. And yes, the bugs were creepy.

Apparently, I almost got to enjoy another Howard Shore soundtrack, but he had a falling out with Jackson a few months before the movie's release. The final soundtrack was composed by some guy named James Newton Howard, who's written soundtracks for other movies that are pretty well known (though perhaps not for their soundtracks, as LotR was).

I wanted to enjoy a Jackson movie between Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit - but it's starting to look like Hobbit might not get made in the near future after all. Peter Jackson's next two scheduled movies are The Lovely Bones and Halo - not Tolkien related at all! Maybe Peter Jackson is just good at remaking old stories. With lots of pretty CG.

He certainly had the budget to make it look all fancified and shiny - apparently, the film had a budget of $207 million. They've made about 75% of that back already. Jackson got paid $20 million in advance to direct the movie - setting a record, as well as emphasizing a Hollywood trend equating quantity with quality. Eh well, I should stop ragging on Jackson - I still owe him plenty of props for his big trilogy.