I realize that I will probably be in the minority but I really didn't think this film was that great. I could have easily walked out after about an hour and not regretted or missed anything. Instead I sat through over three hours of bum-numbing movie excess. I couldn't for the life of me understand why they felt it was necessary to drag us into Jurassic Park for well over an hour. I understand Peter Jackson's proclivity to create complex and 'awe-inspiring' worlds--I mean he used virtually all of New Zealand for the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but this was just a drag. Why we need herds of CGI dinosaurs and prehistoric bugs and a whole bunch of over the top dino/ape brawls but they added nothing to the overall story. My theory is "just because you can doesn't mean that you should!"
Apparently the original version of Kong was the inspiration for Jackson's journey into film, should have left it alone. Remakes are always a dodgy exercise in my estimation and this was no exception. There were some great touches. Kong himself was pretty impressive but that wasn't enough for me. It must be said that I am not the biggest fan of blockbuster movies--I can get my transcendent fix elsewhere and find the fascination and hunger for bigger and bigger effects and action a little tedious. Something is getting lost in all of this CGI stuff I think. I don't say that as a Luddite either, but cinema is beginning to feel a bit like advertising and graphics in the 80s when photoshop and other applications became available and everything began to be very surface and shiny. All the actors did well. Jack Black, Naomi Watts etc., but something was hollow--all that hype and promotion and...I couldn't wait for it to be over.
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