I can now say that I’ve seen Peter Jackson’s King Kong. Actually, I need to add a caveat to that: I’ve seen what I call the projectionist cut of King Kong. I operate the projectors for a small community theatre. Our current equipment uses manual changeovers, arc rods, and 2000′ reels. That means I see films in bits and pieces and usually don’t hear much or any of the dialogue.
In short, my conclusion on the film is that it’s too long for my taste, but has some very good parts. Highlights for me were the acting of Jack Black (surprising, actually), Naomi Watts, and the team of Andy Serkis and the Kong Animators. The scenes with just Kong and Ann Darrow were really excellent. Once I got to the last two reels I noticed a definite improvement. The whole New York sequence was absolutely amazing.
On the lowlight side, I’m not a big fan of “monster movies” so I could have done with a less of most of the Skull Island action sequences. They’re a part of the story, but I found them a bit boring. The effects work was very good, but seeing a bunch of dinosaurs and giant bugs in a film isn’t really remarkable anymore. And, I definitely thought the Kong fighting off the three Tyrannosauri was far and away too indulgent. If I wanted to see giant beasts fight I’d watch one of the Godzilla vs. Whatever films.
Often times these days the DVD editions of films come out with deleted scenes or extended editions. King Kong is one movie that I’d love to see a shorter edition with less of the grandiose effects scenes and more of the interesting character bits with Kong, Ann Darrow, Carl Denham, and Jack Driscoll. But, like I said I’m not really into monster movies so my opinion is probably moot.