Kong and children

Film watched:
King Kong
I read a fair few reviews prior to watching King Kong and the consensus seemed to be that the film was too slow to start with, but then picked up when they reached Skull Island. Also a fair few reviews did not seem to like Jack Black in the role of the director.

Now I had absolutely no problem with the start of the movie, in fact I simply loved every second spent in 1930’s New York. This is probably because I love the look of 1920-30’s America, especially during the prohibition period. I also thought that the choice of Jack Black was very wise, he came off as a kind of young Orson Wells, which fitted the role perfectly.

My problem with the film (and it does have some very big faults), was the realism. Now I know that it’s not very realistic to have gigantic gorilla, BUT my problem was that the human characters seemed to get through so many falls, stampedes and various other incidents with little more than a few cuts and bruises. Anne Darrow alone should have had every bone in her body broken the way that she was shaken and hurled around by Kong. I just couldn’t force myself to suspend my belief to accept that so many people could survive without broken backs, fractures and amputations. Although this was based on a dinosaur inhabited island, this story was still based in the real world, unlike Lord of the Rings, which was pure fantasy. As such, I expected a degree of realism (ignoring Kong and the dinosaurs).

Also some of the CGI was quite ropey, mostly during the dinosaur sequences on Skull Island again. Kong himself was faultless and really was quite an astounding achievement. However, when the CGI did look fake (that stampede sequence strikes me as the most obvious example), it distracted from the film quite a lot.

If it wasn’t for all its faults, this could have been an incredible film, but there was so much that simply didn’t need to be included. At times it seemed like a complete monster mash! When have Kong fight against one T-Rex, when he can fight against three! Why have just a few bugs in a pit when you could have thousands. Peter Jackson needs to learn that at times less is more, which is why The Fellowship of the Rings is still my favourite out the Lord of the Rings.

7.5/10

Elliot has been quite a chore as of late for Roz and I. It seems like his mood seems to change so quickly between being sweet and playful to moody and whiney. It’s possible that he may be feeling a little off colour and as such I’m taking him to the doctors today. He has said a few times that his mouth hurts, but we’ll see what the doctor says. Unfortunately I think that a lot of his whining has little to do with his health and more to do with an unset of the terrible twos.

Also Elliot has been waking up in the night a lot lately. Disrupting both my and Roz’s sleep. I can handle the lack of sleep better than Roz, but it’s still annoying.

It’s at times like this that I really do wonder why couple have more than one baby… Surely there is enough to put you off after the first attempt to stop you from actively making a decision to have another. Then again, maybe people like changing endless nappies, tidying up toys, having little time to themselves and dealing with temperamental toddlers for 24 hours a day for several years of their lives.

After all the appeal is so apparent!