King Long

por-nog-ra-phy: the depiction of acts in a sensational manner so as to arouse a quick intense emotional reaction; obscene writings, drawings, photographs, or the like, especially those having little or no artistic merit.

That’s right, kiddies, porno isn’t just videotape of people with enhanced body parts going at it like epileptic jackrabbits in a skeezy motel room with synthesized elevator music playing in the background. Pornography is the 187 minutes of masturbatory CGI shenanigans I just had to endure, courtesy of one of my used-to-be favorite film-makers, Peter “I Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Editor” Jackson. The movie is way too long, the plot is wafer thin, and there was so much action constantly raping my eyes that now I have to hit myself in the face with a hammer just to know that I’m still alive. A little extreme? Well, that’s what this movie is. Extreme to the max!

King Long
1 Star

por-nog-ra-phy: the depiction of acts in a sensational manner so as to arouse a quick intense emotional reaction; obscene writings, drawings, photographs, or the like, especially those having little or no artistic merit.

That’s right, kiddies, porno isn’t just videotape of people with enhanced body parts going at it like epileptic jackrabbits in a skeezy motel room with synthesized elevator music playing in the background. Pornography is the 187 minutes of masturbatory CGI shenanigans I just had to endure, courtesy of one of my used-to-be favorite film-makers, Mr. Peter Jackson. Making The Lord of the Rings has gone to his head, and this over-board, over-done, over-the-top monstrosity of a “vanity project” has shown us yet another example of what happens to movies when too much money and power are thrown at a filmmaker.

After the critical and popular success of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, it’s easy to anticipate a critical backlash for the works of Jackson. But really, I’m not backlashing; I like the man’s movies and I personally think that the Rings films were, although a bit too long, a great achievement in cinema.

King Kong, however, is just a big three hour wank.

It’s way too long and over-indulgent and doesn’t contain anything of value to make those things even tolerable. The script is cliche-ridden. The characters are not well developed. The plot is thinly stretched over its three hour running time and padded with needless effects, most of which aren’t even executed very well. There is simply no need for the movie to be so long.

The worst thing about Kong is that there’s so much action going on that it actually becomes boring. It really numbed the hell out of me with countless scenes of people running, fighting creepy-crawlies, dinosaurs and Kong tearing shit up and throwing people around, and more running and fighting. Hell, by the time Kong gets to New York and starts smashing up buildings and cars, I was too numb to care. By that point I felt like I had spent the last nine years tied up in the galley of their boat being raped by pirates. See? Peter Jackson’s over-indulgence is rubbing off on me!

Jackson has said that King Kong is a movie that he has wanted to remake forever, so this is really a vanity project for him. Well, it seems like if any truly good filmmaker made a movie mainly for himself it would be better than this. King Kong contains so many pandering, obviously crowd-pleasing moments that making some dough had to have been on his mind. Or maybe Peter Jackson really isn’t that good of a film-maker after all. Maybe this piece of shit is very close to his heart… a heart hardened by money and fame!!!

There were some moments that were charming and entertaining, but those were engulfed by the sheer enormity of the action. On the plus side, Naomi Watts is really pretty good, and it’s nice to see Kyle Chandler in a high-profile flick. Jack Black actually pulls off not being a total buffoon in the movie, even though his character turns into a real unsympathetic schmuck by the middle. But why oh why do we have to have another one of those annoying young man characters who’s always trying to prove himself to the adults? Didn’t we get enough of that in the last Matrix movie? I guess not since I didn’t see any other moviegoers in the audience puking anytime Jimmy (Jamie Bell of Billy Elliot fame) appeared on the screen.

King Kong will probably have hordes of audiences happily laying down their cash at the box office and telling their friends and neighbors that it’s the best damn thing since the invention of the cell phone. So I guess it’s up to us here at Razorfine to crap all over it for all you sickies that read our reviews and really should know better than to support such misguided and pornographic movie-making anyway. If you want porno go rent Butt Sluts 17 and wank yourself off. You don’t need Peter Jackson doing that for you.