A King Kong Life
As a wee children in the early nineties (and by wee children, we're talking 10, 11, 12 years old), many a Wednesday morning were spent in line at the local movie theater for a $2.00 admission fee. I felt I was a king. While all my friends were stuck at home farming or something, I was kicking it back, enjoying the latest film for half the normal price. Usually this experience would also include some sort of carbonated beverage of my choice and healthy portion of community popcorn, which just made the morning all the better. I mean, what other kid got to have soda before lunch on a weekday? Exactly. I can tell you're jealous already. Without traveling further down memory lane, one can understand why having a cheap theater two minutes from my apartment makes me smile. With everyday prices pegged right at $2.50 per a show, taking in a somewhat new movie can be cheaper then a "Blockbuster":http://www.blockbuster.com rental. Tuesdays though, they're special because movies drop to $1.00 a movie all day. It's somewhat exciting for me not only because I'm saving money, but hell - I can afford candy now. Okay, so I'm not that cheap. It's just easier to spend the money when you know you've already saved a few bucks getting in the door. The trip to your local "Target":http://www.target.com for movie-size candies becomes entirely unnecessary, though $1.00 candy at *Target* and $1.00 ticket prices on Tuesdays would mean my ability to upgrade to the large soda. There's a thought...but I digress. At 9:00 o'clock I hopped on over to said theater and purchased one ticket for Peter Jackson's 2005 epic film "King Kong":http://www.kingkongmovie.com/. I can't say the movie was perfect, but I think the fact that I watching the film for one "George Washington":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_one_dollar_bill just allowed me to gloss over the tiny imperfections I've come to expect from Jackson films. I must say that I enjoyed this film more so than "The Two Towers":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings:_The_Two_Towers_%28movie%29 and "The Return of the King":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings:_The_Return_of_the_King_%28film%29. The reasons are primarily personal, which boil down to my love of _The Lord of the Rings_ series and I never read the books until after "The Fellowship of the Ring":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings:_The_Fellowship_of_the_Ring_%28film%29. So when it came to *King Kong*, it was a movie I haven't watched since I was a kid. I admit that the 1933 edition rather bored me as a kid. Among all the digital effects in a post-Star Wars world, many of the early tricks the original Kong movie used seemed rather clunky and half-believable. Some of the criticisms I had heard going into last night centered mostly around the fact that Jackson didn't 'modernize' the story at all but merely recreated the 1933 movie and the dialogue was halting at worst and cliche at best. On the first criticism, frankly I love time-piece films and had Jackson updated the film to the twenty-first century you and I both know that monkey would have never made it halfway up the Empire State Building. Between our military's fighter planes, tanks, and nuclear submarines; the monkey would have had little chance. The story fits at the beginning of the twentieth century, when most of inventions still contained some sort of innocence and naviety. Where the idea of crowds turning out in their best for an evening on Broadway wouldn't exactly be considered out of the norm. The story fits. And concerning the dialogue, was it a masterpiece before? Hardly. But again, while cliche at times - it works for the film. Overall it was a great film that I highly enjoyed, and should you have opportunity to see it on a large screen, do so before it heads to DVD. It's truly an experience (though a bit long clocking in at three hours). Of course if you want to catch it on a large screen and it's already left your local theater, you could always 'buy' a big TV for a week and return after you've finished watching the movie. Finding a friend to do this for you is even better. Just offer to bring the popcorn.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 22, 2006 at 9:33am. It has been filed under Reviews, Movies, Joshua.
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