SteveHevetS
Joined Nov 2004
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SteveHevetS's rating
King Kong is visually stunning - I mean, mindblowingly so - but it bewilders me that people would go to such astounding lengths to create a work that is so spectacular while ignoring other facets so terribly!
Don't get me wrong, I thought it worth seeing almost on the strength of the visual aspect alone. There was a terrific atmosphere in parts, Naomi's acting was wonderful, and Kong was believable as a character, never mind how stunning his presence. Yet it just didn't gel as a whole. Not for me anyhow. There were certain subplots that went nowhere and had so little pertinence to the film as a whole that they felt like awkward tack-ons. The thread of the storyline involving the theatre at the beginning was fair enough to establish Ann Darrow's predicament, but the relationship with the father-figure was developed in a very ordinary fashion, seeming a little like a belabored point rather than a natural element of the story as a whole. Hayes' mentoring of and concern for Jimmy mirrored this element. It looked like it could be interesting at first, but it was not woven into the rest of the film and just kind'a petered out, developing into nothing that had any consequence in the rest of the film.
The believability has been thoroughly reviewed: never mind 'suspending' disbelief, better to just expel it for three hours. This wouldn't be such a big deal if the whole extravaganza was developed purely as a spectacular action-ride. The problem is that it wasn't. Okay, the relationship between Kong and Ann was believable, and that can't have been easy to achieve. So big tick there. However, I'm afraid, for example, I cringed after Kong chased Jack through goodness knows how many streets of New York, finally catches him, then the oh-so-predictable pan to a conveniently located ... well, you can imagine. Then there's the small matter of getting tonnes of Kong onto a battered boat, never mind fitting him in. That's just the start really - as I said, thoroughly reviewed elsewhere.
All in all, I wish the creators could have sorted out in their own minds whether they wanted this film to be serious or not. It was most certainly no complete package for mine. Nevertheless, it is possibly the most visually spectacular film I've seen, which is saying something these days.
Don't get me wrong, I thought it worth seeing almost on the strength of the visual aspect alone. There was a terrific atmosphere in parts, Naomi's acting was wonderful, and Kong was believable as a character, never mind how stunning his presence. Yet it just didn't gel as a whole. Not for me anyhow. There were certain subplots that went nowhere and had so little pertinence to the film as a whole that they felt like awkward tack-ons. The thread of the storyline involving the theatre at the beginning was fair enough to establish Ann Darrow's predicament, but the relationship with the father-figure was developed in a very ordinary fashion, seeming a little like a belabored point rather than a natural element of the story as a whole. Hayes' mentoring of and concern for Jimmy mirrored this element. It looked like it could be interesting at first, but it was not woven into the rest of the film and just kind'a petered out, developing into nothing that had any consequence in the rest of the film.
The believability has been thoroughly reviewed: never mind 'suspending' disbelief, better to just expel it for three hours. This wouldn't be such a big deal if the whole extravaganza was developed purely as a spectacular action-ride. The problem is that it wasn't. Okay, the relationship between Kong and Ann was believable, and that can't have been easy to achieve. So big tick there. However, I'm afraid, for example, I cringed after Kong chased Jack through goodness knows how many streets of New York, finally catches him, then the oh-so-predictable pan to a conveniently located ... well, you can imagine. Then there's the small matter of getting tonnes of Kong onto a battered boat, never mind fitting him in. That's just the start really - as I said, thoroughly reviewed elsewhere.
All in all, I wish the creators could have sorted out in their own minds whether they wanted this film to be serious or not. It was most certainly no complete package for mine. Nevertheless, it is possibly the most visually spectacular film I've seen, which is saying something these days.
The central premise of this film is that the negative consequences of human emotion outweigh the positive consequences. In the futuristic setting, people inject a drug, 'prozium', which is supposed to annihilate emotion. Christian Bale plays the part of John Preston, a cleric in a somewhat paradoxical situation: he is charged with ensuring people do not indulge in illegal 'sense-crimes', which he does by sensing that others are sensing. Now, does that make sense?
I had some difficulty getting around this paradox so as to engage in the film, and unfortunately it reflected a pervasive problem. If people do not feel anything, if they are genuinely emotionally dead, then why would they do anything at all? Why even move if you do not feel the desire to eat, drink, interact with another human being? There is no reason. The Latin root of the word 'emotion' is emovere - to displace and so cause to move. Equilibrium would be fitting, except the equilibrium without emotion is most likely a complete lack of any movement in the absence of any motivating drives.
Despite this fundamental problem, I could not seem to dislike the film. It was thought-provoking and Christian Bale gives a very engaging performance in my view. Actually, the simple fact that it made me actually think about what I found so implausible was possibly its greatest saving grace. I only wish the creators of Equilibrium had developed the main premise a little further. If prozium made humans incapable of experiencing passion - heady emotions - but allowed them to feel enough that they could engage in the actions and human expression necessary to the storyline, I believe the film could have been really good. In order to watch it, I pretty much substituted this premise anyhow, and on that basis I quite enjoyed it. If this were the intended premise, however, this was not at all clear to me. Worse that that, though, if it were the intended premise, an element of the storyline betrayed that premise. Without going into any detail, the element has to do with exploitation of certain characters by others.
I doubt my comments will be popular given the high "average" rating of this film (it's not really an average because the ratings aren't measurements but I won't get into that ...). I'm afraid that's tough, though. When a film has serious flaws, it has serious flaws.
There were many other more trivial problems, not the least of which were the many Matrix-style action sequences reaching a level of incredulity that was, well, hard to believe. These I found humorous more than anything. Yet, I must admit that I still managed to get something out of the film. At the end of the day, it was thought-provoking, and so despite many flaws, it was worth watching. If only, though ...
I had some difficulty getting around this paradox so as to engage in the film, and unfortunately it reflected a pervasive problem. If people do not feel anything, if they are genuinely emotionally dead, then why would they do anything at all? Why even move if you do not feel the desire to eat, drink, interact with another human being? There is no reason. The Latin root of the word 'emotion' is emovere - to displace and so cause to move. Equilibrium would be fitting, except the equilibrium without emotion is most likely a complete lack of any movement in the absence of any motivating drives.
Despite this fundamental problem, I could not seem to dislike the film. It was thought-provoking and Christian Bale gives a very engaging performance in my view. Actually, the simple fact that it made me actually think about what I found so implausible was possibly its greatest saving grace. I only wish the creators of Equilibrium had developed the main premise a little further. If prozium made humans incapable of experiencing passion - heady emotions - but allowed them to feel enough that they could engage in the actions and human expression necessary to the storyline, I believe the film could have been really good. In order to watch it, I pretty much substituted this premise anyhow, and on that basis I quite enjoyed it. If this were the intended premise, however, this was not at all clear to me. Worse that that, though, if it were the intended premise, an element of the storyline betrayed that premise. Without going into any detail, the element has to do with exploitation of certain characters by others.
I doubt my comments will be popular given the high "average" rating of this film (it's not really an average because the ratings aren't measurements but I won't get into that ...). I'm afraid that's tough, though. When a film has serious flaws, it has serious flaws.
There were many other more trivial problems, not the least of which were the many Matrix-style action sequences reaching a level of incredulity that was, well, hard to believe. These I found humorous more than anything. Yet, I must admit that I still managed to get something out of the film. At the end of the day, it was thought-provoking, and so despite many flaws, it was worth watching. If only, though ...