King Kong - A Series of clichés
Prologue
To be honest, I had no idea of what the movie was going to be about.
Over the years, I had developed a kind of a subconscious image of the movie King Kong being about a big Gorilla and a human girl he falls for.
I have not seen the earlier movies - there were about 4 of them made according to IMDB, so I don’t really quite know how much this stuck to the originals, but here goes anyways…
The Review
The film starts with a very vintage look - I guess it has too…
It is set about sometime in the 1930s during the Great Depression of the United States (which actually lasted from 1929 - 1940)
The first half an hour of the movie takes us through the New York of the depressions - with thousands of people homeless, out of work, or going out of work.
The cinematography is impeccable.
Here, we are introduced to Jack Black who is sort of an obsessed movie maker who intends to make the next greatest adventure flick ever.
We are also introduced here to the very lovely Naomi Watts, who is an out of work actress and trying hard to make ends meet.
The other leading actor in the movie (besides King Kong himself) is the very suave Adrien Brody, who is also supposed to be the hero of the movie.
The first hour of the movie, as many people would tell is quite slow, but it was very interesting nevertheless.
The cinematography was a Peter Jackson true to life and you could really tell the directors focus to detail.
Even though the entire city was computer graphics, it was very realistic.
The second part of the movie is where the action actually picks up and this lasts for about the one hour and fifteen minutes.
The entire cast, reaches the shore of a ’’to be believed’’ lost island and that’s when the real fun actually begins.
In this part, we are introduced to King Kong and also every other possible creature which has managed to survive through the centuries.
Here the computer graphics are at their best, with action packed chase sequences every five minutes - leaving you pretty much breathless and at the edge of your seat.
There are actually a LOT of chase sequences, but they improve on the ’’adrenaline rush factor’’ with every sequence …
During the second half, which is shot entirely on the island, the scenery is nice but sometimes, things get pretty gory - these guys have not edited out quite a lot of content - and mind you, some parts got pretty squeamish.
You’ll also notice a lot of threads from the ’’Return of the King’’ battle sequences which are very noticeable.
This brings us to the last part of the movie, which again goes back to the city and hence goes into the emotional - drama track.
Though there is a King Kong rummaging through the city sequence, it was not as exciting as the island sequences.
I liked the overall acting of the cast and I think Jackson got the casting pretty much spot on.
Jack Black plays the looney director to perfection till the end, Adrien Brody also is good and Naomi Watts is stunning throughout the movie.
They all play their parts spot on - true to life.
Though, at many places, I found the supporting actors to be mediocre.
The plot of the movie is that there is no plot.
Sadly, there is hardly any story in the movie, and if I had to tell you the story, I could have done it in 5 - 10 lines.
But it is pretty much on the lines of the original movies - I am sure.
The background scores were pretty decent and kept up the pace of the movie at proper places. Though there was nothing outstanding about it (like as in Gladiator or Lord of the Rings)
The Computer Graphics were top notch. No question about it.
You’ll probably get your money’s worth just in the graphics quota.
Lastly, the cinematography is as good as it gets in any movie.
I did not find any flaws at all … and I was really impressed by it.
Ending Notes
At 3 hours 7 minutes, the movie does get pretty long, but it is worth it.
Some parts, in my opinion, could have done with some snipping - and the movie would be best at about 2 hours 45 mins or so.
I think what Peter Jackson has done here, is to take an old movie and do things which were never before possible.
This is apparent in all the action sequences and the amount of detail given to so many things.
After the ’’Return of the King’’, I did find this a touch disappointing, but the second hour almost made up for it.
Though at parts the movie becomes mind numbingly brilliant, there will be parts which go to the level of some B grade movies and make you cringe (this is mostly to do with the supporting actors) or maybe these parts were necessary in keeping with the original King Kongs.
However, many things lose touch with reality (which is kind of acceptable because it is a King Kong) movie.
But I sincerely believe, that the movie could have done with a fewer cliché’s.
In the end, it turned out to be one cliché after another…
All in all, a very nicely made movie with a very nice cast to boast and a lot of effort put in it.
Definitely worth your hundred bucks.
1/17/2006
Dombivli Fast
I caught this movie, at the Pune International Film Festival (which was my second good movie of the day) - and very worth the effort of waiting an hour and a half in front of the doors for the movie to start.
In five minutes, the hall was jam packed - with no one being able to get in because of the number of people sitting on the floors and standing by the doors to catch the movie.
Dombivli Fast is a marathi movie which revolves around the life of a middle class man - Madhav Apte (played by Sandeep Kulkarni) who is a pretty stubborn man and has a very ’’No compromising on my principles’’ attitude.
The starting of the movie depicts the redundancy of his everyday life with him doing the same things day after day after day …
Madhav Apte has never bribed anyone in his life and has never accepted any bribes himself. He is a very straight forward guy who has lived his life so far on his principles and is hell bent on continuing to do the same.
He sees the rampant corruption around him, the apathy of people and how everyone has the ’’chalta hai’’ attitude.
Everytime he tries to intervene or do something, he is stopped by one of his friends or colleagues who tell him to ’’forget it and move on’’.
Throughout his life, he is taunted by his wife, friends and neighbours on his uncompromising attitude, and how the ’’real’’ world does not work that way.
Finally, one day, he flips - the constant taunts and the drudgery of his everyday routine playing a major part in it.
What happens next when he flips, is what the movie is all about.
The supporting cast did a pretty awesome job and their acting was pretty much flawless. Kudos to Sandesh Jadhav who plays the cop and Shilpa Tulaskar who plays his wife.
The director of the movie is Nishikant Kamat and he’s also done a fabulous job of shaping the movie in the way it was done.
For a Indian movie, this one had some surprisingly, good production which put it on par with the other movies being shown at the film festival.
I personally felt, that a little bit more time should have been spent in character building - due to which it takes sometime to empathize with the main protagonist.
Due to this, the movie seems to drag a bit towards the middle, but the ending of the film is awesome and justifies for any other little flaw that the movie might have had.
Once the movie got over in the over crowded hall, the exit doors were empty.
Everyone, including the people who were sitting on the walk-ways were just .. sitting.
No one spoke for quite sometime.
The movie depicts how every person should think, but also at the same time, sticks to the sad reality of how the outcome might turn up.
Hotel Rwanda
I caught this movie at the Pune International Film Festival just yesterday.
The movie hall which was showing it, was a good 45 minutes drive from our places, but by the end of the movie, everyone was happy that we took the trip.
Hotel Rwanda is a movie which takes us through a true story of a Paul Rusesabagina - who is the house manager of a Four Star hotel and houses more than thousand tutsi refugees in his hotel to save them from the Hutu Militia.
Let me further explain.
The story is from 1994 - when Rwanda was torn up between 2 opposing camps - the Tutsis and the Hutus.
The Hutus take over the country and start killing all Tutsi people - especially the children to stop the next generation of the Tutsis.
’’The movie depicts the very enigmatic nature of Africa and its countries - which can be both, extremely beautiful as well as extremely violent at the same time.
The movie plays around the incident when the entire world turned a blind eye on the thousands of refugees during one of the worst atrocrities in the african history.
When the entire world turned the other way during the mass genocides and slayings of africans, Paul stood up and played his part in saving thousands of people from definite extermination.
The lead role of Paul Rusesabagina is played by Don Cheadle who does stunning work which lets you empathize with the main protagonist without any effort.
The other main characters are played by Xolani Mali as the policeman, Sophie Okonedo as Paul’s wife, Nick Nolte as the UN Colonel Oliver, Joaquin Phoenix as a member of International Press.
All of them gel well together, play their part to the T and as a result are able to bring to you the very disturbing pictures of the struggle taking place and how the world reacts to these things.
The cinematography and the editing of the movie was extremely well done and no one moved a bit during the entire length of the movie - which at 2 hours is a bit long for an English film.
Surprisingly, even without showing a lot of gore and violence, the director is able to capture the essence of every situation and transport us to that place.
The movie overall is extremely well done - and I am sure will be there in one of your ’’best movies made’’ list once you have seen it.
It had been nominated for 3 oscars including best actor in lead role, best actress in supporting role and best screenplay.
In the end, Hotel Rwanda is an extremely hard hitting, powerful movie which one needs to see to really know what goes on behind the superficial news that we see now and then - and what people actually go through.
