lifebsideben

Actually went to a movie yesterday, which is wildly unusual now that we’ve got the wee one. Saw King Kong with my dad at the Metreon in SF. The nice thing about going to the 10:40am show is you can sit wherever you want! The bad part is, at the Metreon, there’s no matinee price break. $8/person, and after a 3hr move, $11 in parking at the 4th & Mission garage. Over $30 for two people to see a movie (including the 5oz bag of peanut m&ms: $3.80) seems pretty steep, but hey, it’s King Kong! Gotta see it on the big screen.

And see it we did. All of it. All 3 hours. Every little detail Peter Jackson could possibly dream up. Seriously, get a better editor. It never quite got boring, but certainly there was a lot of languishing on scenes, extra shots, that really didn’t add anything, but did draw it all out. Some of the stuff (the rescued kid on the steamer, the brontosaurus stampede, shooting the giant roaches off a person) even detracted, in my opinion. Still, there was a lot of neat stuff to see, the T-Rex vs. Kong part was entertaining if ridiculous, and the ending was really well done. I don’t remember much from the original, but I think the spirit of it was probably pretty accurately carried forward–adventurous, over-the-top, etc. I didn’t mind that we didn’t see Kong until the 1hr mark (except that if it were edited properly that would have been the 35 minute mark). Some of the effects were cheesier than I had expected (especially the stampede stuff), but that’s in part because I expect them to be perfect these days. Overall I’d give it a B-/C+. Mostly entertaining, but too long and not “perfect” effects. Not worth $8 to me personally, but some folks probably would think it is. I do believe it’s not going to be the box office savior a lot of folks are hoping for.

Tags: movies, review, Sony