Here's my review:

In a word - "spectacular". Peter Jackson makes movies with the wonder and imagination of a child. And this film has got everything in it. You'll laugh out loud, you'll cry like a baby and your heart will race. Let me start off about the length, just over three hours. If you're one of those people who has an attention span of a five year old, you're gonna bitch about it. We don't get to the gorilla until almost half-way through. But the time Jackson spends leading up to this part is rich with character development, gorgeous scenery (which you easily forget is almost all computer-generated) and plot development.

If you can allow yourself to get immersed in the film, you'll enjoy every minute of it. Unfortunately for me I had some idiot woman and her young daughter sitting behind me gabbing away as if they were sitting in their own living room. It kept breaking my concentration and pissing me off. I think one of the downsides to home entertainment systems is that there is a whole generation of kids who experience so much of their movie viewing in the home setting that they don't learn that you're supposed to shut your pie-hole when you actually go to a theater full of people. Not to mention the fact that most parents exercise zero judgement with their kids and take them to movies that are totally inapropriate. I often wonder what the hell some of these people are thinking, and then it dawns on me - they DON'T.

The bottom line is that this is one of those rare situations where seeing the movie is worth putting up with all the crap - the overpriced tickets and food, the crowds, the lines, the endless commentary from people sitting near you. It really is. Now I'm faced with a dilemma. My nine year old really wants to see it, but I'm not sure if that's the best idea. There are some pretty scary moments here.

Now if your kid has seen the "Jurassic Park" movies, there aren't any scenes with dinosaurs that are worse than anything they've already seen. Really the two most intense scenes involve the savages on Skull Island and a part where the rescue party is attacked by huge creepy-crawlies. The islanders are the stuff of nightmares, and could induce some in a child that is prone to them. The giant insect scene is pretty gross. If your kid hates bugs, forget it. They'll be traumatized. There are even some giant leech/slug-like things that literally devour the head and extremities of one of the characters while he struggles to escape. Again, this is the kind of gross stuff that Jackson loves to put on screen but it's probably one of the reasons that the movie earned a PG-13.

But beyond the scary parts, if you have a child that gets upset when they see a small dead animal you also have a problem. The emotion that Kong conveys, especially towards the end of the movie is powerful. His nonverbal interactions with Naomi Watts - in the NY scenes in particular - really make the audience connect to him. In the final scene atop the Empire State Building, I saw grown men with their eyes welling up. A particulary sensitive child might become just as upset as if he or she lost someone close to them. So it really depends on the kid - their maturity, what they've been exposed to thus far and how well they are able to put in perspective that it's all just make-believe.

As for me, I'm leaning toward taking him but I think it would be a good idea to prepare him in advance for things he might want to hide his eyes from. We'll see.

Anyway, "King Kong" definitely lives up to the hype. I give it an enthusiastic thumbs-up!

Posted by: Gary at 06:30 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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