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This topic comprises 8 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
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Author
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Topic: Peter Jackson's King Kong
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Sam Graham
AKA: "The Evil Sam Graham". Wackiness ensues.
Posts: 1431
From: Waukee, IA
Registered: Dec 2004
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posted 12-16-2005 05:33 PM
CINEMA: Century 20 at Jordan Creek, West Des Moines, IA
AUDITORIUM: 1
PRESENTATION: Dolby Digital/THX
PRESENTATION PROBLEMS: None ![[Cool]](cool.gif)
RATING: Two and one half stars (out of four)
WARNING: Shaky boat scenes can cause motion spoilers
This movie is NO "Titanic", and won't even come close to its box office gross. Reason number one: Jack Black. Chicks don't dig Jack Black. Reason number two: Bugs. This movie is full of gross-out giant cockroaches, spiders, Gila monsters, and some weird fleshy finger looking thingies with teeth. Women will NOT be repeat viewers.
We basically have three one hour B-movies tied together here. The first one is a lot like driving through Nebraska. Sure you see something interesting once in awhile...like the Gothenburg Runza...but for the most part you're thinking "Are we there yet?" The second hour is a Jurassic Park sequel with some fantastic action scenes. This is the most impressive part of the movie. The third hour starts cold in New York and is a wacky "fish out of water" sequence that ends heroically or tragically depending on your point of view. Throw in a couple of pretty sunsets, a romantic ice skating date, and the build-up of the blonde/ape bond, and there you go. It's a good thing the acting and dialogue was minimal, becuase I was drawing comparisons to 1998's "Godzilla" there.
This is one of those films that will gross nine figures, make its money back, and STILL leave the studio disappointed.
One girl leaving the auditorium said to her friend, "..And during the whole dinosaur stuff...If I were King Kong, I would have told her she was too high maintenance and dumped her!"
EXACTLY!
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Adam Wilbert
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 590
From: Bellingham, WA, USA
Registered: Mar 2002
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posted 12-17-2005 02:01 PM
miniatures of hard metalic objects with straight edges, such as helicopters and spaceships, are much easier to pull off than a "living" breathing, furry animal. Between Narnia and Kong, there is no way to get that level of detail with a model. I was watching Terminator a couple of weeks ago and commented that the end scenes of the stop-motion endoskeleton and the actors against a blue screen didn't look any better than Jason and the Argonauts and there was thirty years (?) separating the shots.
Bobby, I completely agree with you about fretting the details, but I think that as a viewer, one needs to give the effects some leeway. ... until they're just so bad that it is unbearable to watch. Maybe this tolerance level is just different from person to person. For me, the effects in Kong weren't distracting in the least. I don't think that digital equals perfect in its own, and I really doubt most people do. The effects in Kong obviously took a lot of work by a lot of people. I do, however, get the feeling that some people think that CGI is done by some kid in china with a copy of 3D Studio Max. I have no doubt that the people working on Kong wrote a lot of custom shaders and were working on the cutting edge of CG. I guess my point is that though the effects might not be 100% believable, it's the best there is. If that isn't good enough, then we'll just have to stop making movies about giant apes.
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Michael Schaffer
"Where is the
Boardwalk Hotel?"
Posts: 4143
From: Boston, MA
Registered: Apr 2002
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posted 12-17-2005 04:03 PM
I think it looked pretty good most of the time. Yes, the pole vault thing looked surprisingly bad given that it was just a silhouette, it must have been one of the easiest things to do (maybe that's why).
Some of the CGI dinosaurs looked a little flat and pale. All the brontosaurus scenes were less than convincing. The first shot of them wasn't very good, and when they interact with the actors during the stampede, there are several shots where they look like they are in the background even though they are supposed to be partially on the same plane with the actors. It looks too much like a 2D background.
But some other stuff was very nice, like the encounter between Kong and the T-Rexes.
Obviously, we know that all these shots, however good or bad, are effects. My rule is that when I watch and don't concentrate on the effects as such, when it jumps at you that this is an effect because it blows the bubble of illusion, it's not good enough, and when I watch but don't specifically see myself reminded that I am watching an effect, it's good.
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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today
Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99
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posted 12-18-2005 05:27 AM
To me it's always the physics that give away bad CGI. The shit looks great in stills, but when you see it in motion it looks completely fake because the physics are all wrong. One great example is when Orlando Bloom climbs the mutant elephant towards the last 5 or 6 hours of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. He climbs up it and kills it. The whole sequence is probably some of the worst effects I've ever seen on screen due to the complete disregard for physics that immediately tells my brain "FAKE FAKE FAKE!" There is alot of that same stuff in Kong, though Kong hisself looks pretty good. The dinosaurs don't look as good as Jurassic Park, though... not even the first one.
Also about Kong, I noticed a ton of Peter Jackson "sweeping wide view shots" that make the sets look like models (it's actually CGI). He loves to do that sweeping shit. It's getting old, Petey! We don't need sweeping panoramic camera movements for every new scene! Jackson's a guy who gets his hand on a technique, sees it in action, loves it, and then overuses it. Also, what's with the low-framerate footage during the first few hours when they arrive on the island? Seemed out of place and didn't add anything. Oh, and notice how crowded New York City is. Then suddenly it is deserted when Naomi Watts walks onto the screen. It stays completely devoid of all other life for awhile, then suddenly it is immensely overpopulated and overpanicked again. WTF? Also, when did Jack Black do the show where Kong was in chains? Was the show at 2 or 3 in the morning? By the time they get to the top of the Empire State Building, the sun is already rising. In winter. It comes up later in winter. WTF?
The movie didn't feel like 3 hours to me. It felt like 14.
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