Initial Impressions

I’ll be honest, I never really cared that much for King Kong. I saw the Jessica Lange version in the 70s but the storyline seemed silly and the only takeaway I had as a young boy was of Kong getting shot down from the World Trade Center.

Stupid.

But Peter Jackson…my God! He has taken what was, at best, a B-movie script that relied heavily on special effects and turned it into a Class A work of art.

The Story

The movie evoked both pity and terror in me and did have the point of breakthrough as you realize that Kong could no more stay away from Ann than he could refuse to breath while sleeping. The secret cause of his death was the same that Martin Luther King Jr. had, because he was driven towards that end by his own love for what his passions were drivin him toward.

Fran Walsh and her writing team have done another fantastic job with this screenplay and Peter Jackson has added one more huge reason why he is the best director out there today (Spielberg and Lucas included) in my opinion.

The Special Effects

The special effects were a bit obvious in some places, not as seamless as the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, but these blips were highly forgiveable given the unbelievable fight scene between Kong and three (or four) V-Rex’s (that’s Virtual T-Rex as Jackson calls them). The finishing move Kong has is bone-crunching, turn your head away and can’t believe you just saw that fantastic.

The Video Game

First of all, the game isn’t worth $60, but I say that because of its replayability. That being said, the people who put this game together are artists at the top of their craft. The sound is incredible, you actually want to swat at the gnats and mosquitos buzzing around you all the time.

The graphics are as good as I’ve seen on any movie video game and I actually screamed twice while playing as crap just jumps out at you from nowhere.

I highly recommend this game as I bet that it looks four times as good on an HDTV (I still haven’t made the jump).

One drawback is that you only get to play as Kong for about 30% of the game, but this is forgiveable as that is about all that a video game would allow as far as plot goes.

Conclusion

Both the game and movie are fantastic but you should absolutely see the movie in the theatre. Once again, Jackson has made every attempt that came before him (including the 1933 original) nothing more than a whiteboard rough draft.

Fantastic!

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