The 3-disc extended edition of Peter Jackson's King Kong can be had for around a fiver from all kinds of places at the moment - Amazon, some of the supermarkets - which makes it a pretty good bargain.I saw it on the big screen but had no urge to pick up the DVD until now, where the pricing point makes it ridiculous to pass it up. I thought it was great filmmaking, but not a great film. Great execution, eye-popping sequences, but structurally... bloody hell. It was like being forced to shovel down a vast meal consisting entirely of treats and cake.
Here's a thought. Instead of a cut with even more sequences and extended scenes, what I'd like to see is the Merian C Cooper cut - by which I mean Jackson's footage, edited by him to conform to the structure and pacing of the 1933 original. Which, let's face it, moved with the speed of a cat out of a bonfire and still packs a wallop.
Incidentally, if you're picking up the Cooper/Shoedsack original and quality's an issue for you, make sure you get the restored and remastered version. British reissues at the time of the Jackson release featured an older, not-so-good transfer.
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3 comments:
3 hours is far too long - what was the whole point in Kong skating? Pure self-indulgence.
Jackson should make a sequel to Bad Taste, just to address the balance.
MORE King Kong? As if the original cut wasn't lon enough?
*gag*
The extended cut adds another 13 minutes to the original running time, but the extras disc contains a further 43 minutes of deleted scenes!
Which almost makes me think that Jackson missed an opportunity there, and could have further emulated the original by spending the time and money on a back-to-back remake of The Most Dangerous Game with the same cast and sets.
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