Yesterday afternoon I got a wild hair and decided to take Mason (age 4) and his cousin Dylan (10) to go see Peter Jackson’s King Kong, which clocks in at 3 hours, 7 minutes. The entire first act of the film is spent getting our protagonists to Skull Island. Don’t get me wrong, it’s interesting to watch and adds depth and background to the characters, but it’s a long hour with no action or comedy for two kids who came to see a big CGI gorilla. Right before the boat’s arrived at the island, Mason leaned over to me and whispered, “Daddy, I wanna go home. This is boring.”
He soon changed his mind, as act 2 kicks in with a vengence and doesn’t let up for almost an hour an a half. There’s Kong fighting people, Kong fighting dinosaurs, dinosaurs fighting dinosaurs, bugs/spiders/wormy-things fighting people, Kong fighting more people … it just doesn’t let up! Viewers get a ten minute or so break between acts two and three as the mighty Kong is transported from Skull Island to Long Island (bad idea), and then the action is cranked back up to 10 as Kong turns Times Square into his own personal playground. Both kids were glad we stayed.
The television trailers and movie clips on the web don’t do the special effects justice. King Kong is cutting edge; definitely the best special effects to date. I suspect when the next generation of media (whether it’s Blu-Ray, HD-DVD or something else) hits the market, King Kong will be the demo disc. If you haven’t seen the movie by then don’t worry, it’ll be showing on every televsion set in every electronics store everywhere.
EDIT: King Kong has been added to the Movies I’ve Seen In 2005 List!