Serenity - DJ

I’m just going to go ahead and say it right up front, if I had seen Serenity before I wrote my best and worst of 2005 list, it would be near the top of the best list.  As far as sci-fi action movies go, this is the best one I’ve seen in a long time.

Serenity is basically the movie created to appease all those disappointed when Fox cancelled Firefly a couple years ago.  I watched Firefly when it was on, brilliantly placed in Fox’s Friday time slot that guarantees a short existence.  True to Fox’s reputation, the show didn’t even last the whole first season.  This may seem blasphemous to Firefly militants, but to me, the show was ok, but not great.  I enjoyed it, but more out of the fact that it wasted an hour with a bit of amusement than the fact that I was really into it.  After seeing Serenity, I’m now full blown pissed that Firefly was cancelled.  My reasoning is that plenty of shows take a little while to really get up to their potential.  The Simpsons is always my best example.  In my opinion they didn’t hit their stride until somewhere in season 2 or 3.  The obvious improvement between Firefly and Serenity leads me to believe that this was a show that was on its way to greatness.

While the movie continues the story of the TV show, don’t worry if you haven’t seen the show.  The movie stands on its own just fine, even if you never even heard of Firefly.  As the story has moved from the TV screen to the big screen, obviously everything is done bigger and better.  The effects (while good in the show) are excellent and the story is far more engaging than the plots of the show.  What hasn’t changed is the dynamic of the actual crew.  While two members are no longer aboard (they make appearances later in the movie), all the original actors and actresses have returned and work well together.  This movie proves once again that you can make a movie with basically unknown actors and actresses and not lose an ounce of quality.  In fact, I prefer a group of talented unknown people over big names simply because I can more easily see the character instead of the actor.  The only two people I really recognized were Adam Baldwin (no, not one of those Baldwins) and Alan Tudyk (the pirate in Dodgeball).  My one problem, which was unfortunately unavoidable, was that some of the important crew members from the show have been basically relegated to minor characters.  When limited to a 2 hour movie, it’s pretty much impossible to explore 9 different major characters properly.

Sci-fi action may be my favorite genre of movies, which means I have seen many many movies of this type.  Joss Whedon has managed to craft an engaging story full of action, plenty of comedy, and a good cast.  Even if you’re not a fan of Buffy or Angel (I didn’t like either), give this one a chance.  As a sci-fi action movie, this is a solid four stars.  If you’re into sci-fi action, I highly recommend you pick this one up.  I’m sure you’ve already figured it out by now, but my personal enjoyment of this one is also a solid four stars.

Sci-fi Action: ****
Enjoyment: ****

King Kong - Fargus

Even those among us who've never seen the original King Kong know the story. Truth be told, the story's not that hard to know. A group of filmmakers goes to a mysterious island to make a movie. A beautiful actress is kidnapped by a giant gorilla. The gorilla is captured and put on display in New York City, where he eventually falls off of the Empire State Building and dies (or the World Trade Center, if you watch the remake from the 1970s). It's a simple story, really. Ape meets girl, ape loses girl, ape finds girl, ape falls from the tallest building in the world.

In my view, it's the simplicity of the story that's the only real detriment to Peter Jackson's otherwise brilliant remake. That's not to say that there's anything wrong with the story; rather, the story's not really enough to support a movie longer than three hours. If Jackson had introduced some measured complexity to the plot, it could have served him quite well, I think. But as it is, much of the middle section of the film, though visually brilliant, feels like so much padding.

The film opens in what feels like a photorealistic version of 1930s New York City. Jack Black is magnificent as the near-sociopathic filmmaker Carl Denham (although, I admit, I may be a bit biased toward anything Jack Black does, just because of how hard he rocks). Naomi Watts is beautiful, as always, and compelling to watch. She's naive, but her character (vaudeville performer Ann Darrow) is given much more depth than the screaming beauty in the original. Adrien Brody, in his portrayal of playwright Jack Driscoll, isn't really action hero material, but that's not his role here. In fact, the film does a pretty good job of lampooning the film-within-the-film's action star, Bruce Baxter (Kyle Chandler), as an opportunist and a coward. He looks the part, but that's about it.

My main gripe comes with the middle of the film. After the first hour, the crew finally reaches Skull Island, and the special effects machine kicks into high gear. Don't get me wrong; there's a lot to enjoy in the middle hour of the film. There's a wonderful scene between Kong and Ann, where their relationship is established. There's a pretty marvelous fight scene between Kong and a number of dinosaurs, and it only runs a little bit long. But even with as spectacular as the effects were, I felt myself yawning a bit during this portion of the film.

The final hour of the film was brilliant, though, in my opinion. The great triumph of Peter Jackson's remake was in making Kong more than a monster. It goes without saying that Andy Serkis (on whose motions and facial expressions Kong was modeled) is the best digitally-altered actor in the business. Kong's movements and gestures are realistic, and his eyes convey a deep well of emotion that's never been possible to show until now. This is what made his death scene so poignant and heart-wrenching. Along with Kong's palpable agony, his relationship with Ann Darrow makes the scene work on another level than it ever had in the original film. Not only was Kong misunderstood by those who sought to exploit him, he'd actually found someone who did understand him, and who didn't want anything more than for him to be happy. I thought that the development of that relationship made the end of the film far more satisfying than it otherwise would have been.

There's a smart and subtle allusion to Fay Wray and the original King Kong, which was probably my favorite detail in the whole movie, and one that most viewers would miss. I didn't want to finish the review before mentioning it.

In the final reckoning, King Kong is a very good movie. I believe it could have been a great movie, had it been about a half hour shorter, which is a bit of a shame. But if nothing else, the film cements Peter Jackson's place as one of the great filmmakers of our time (even if he may need to be reined in a bit sometimes).

King Kong movie: Better than the original
Action/adventure: ***
Overall: ***

King Kong - DJ

Growing up I always loved the original King Kong.  Heck, I even enjoyed the 70’s remake, but it lost something when they took it out of the 30’s setting of the original.  I was happy to see that Peter Jackson had decided to return to the original time period and Kong would once again be atop the Empire State Building at a time when it towered far above any other building in New York.

I’ll say right up front, this is a good movie, but it could have been an exceptional movie with some editing.  The only thing I found wrong with this movie was that it was too long.  Everything was done just a little too much and it eventually just overwhelmed me and I started to get bored.  

The first half of the movie involved the setup of the characters and their interactions.  Drawing this part out never really bothers me in movies as it usually makes me actually care about the characters and what happens to them (unlike Black Hawk Down where I couldn’t even tell the difference between them let alone care what happened to them).  I figured that was Peter Jackson’s purpose in drawing out the sailing toward the island.  Unfortunately as I realized later, he drew out everything in the whole three hour movie.

The second part involved the characters’ adventures on Skull Island in an attempt to rescue Ann Darrow.  This was good….for a while.  By the time they started getting attacked by giant bugs I was starting to check my watch.  I mean I understand that the island is full of plenty of dangerous animals, but there are only so many times they can be attacked by something and I’m still going to care.  By the time it was the bugs, it just didn’t matter to me.  There’s one more thing that really bothers me still about the Skull Island section of the movie.  The first thing that happens to the team is that they’re caught in a narrow ravine in the middle of a dinosaur stampede.  Ok, that makes great action, but my problem is, they had just come out of a cave on the side of the ravine and were standing next to the entrance when the stampede started.  Wouldn’t a normal person just duck back into the cave instead of trying to outrun an entire pack of dinosaurs?  It’s like when people run away from a pillar as it falls toward them instead of just taking three steps to the side.  This, in my opinion, made the entire 15 minute sequence completely unnecessary.

Finally, after god knows how long, Kong was finally brought back to New York City.  Of course this is the classic part of any Kong film (except the 70’s one where I seem to remember the city was abandoned or something and Kong found the girl in a bar….hmm…that movie seems worse the more I think about it).  I obviously have no idea what 30’s New York looked like, but the visuals in the movie made me feel like I was there.  Unfortunately my same problem with the rest of the movie came back at a most inconvenient time.  The scene with Kong at the top of the Empire State Building was once again too long.  It actually got to the point where I didn’t care by the time Kong fell off the building.  I was actually rooting for them to shoot him so the movie would be over.

What could have been as good if not better than the original was unfortunately bogged down and entirely too long.  As a Kong movie, I’d say the settings, acting, and visual effects put it above the 70’s remake, but the lack of editing don’t allow this movie to beat the original King Kong.  Thus assuming the original is a four out of four, this remake is only a three out of four for a Kong movie.  As an action/adventure movie once again, it loses a star for lack of editing and thus I give it a three out of four.  Same reason for why it gets a three instead of a four on my enjoyment scale.

King Kong movie: ***
Action/Adventure: ***
Enjoyment: ***