Unofficial Tex Murphy

Saw it last week...

GREAT film... best film I have seen in 2005.

Here is my review:


It was a bit slow to start with but that was because I was expecting too much too early... once it got into the swing of things I came to realise it is a very balanced film story wise and progresses smoothly. It is emotional, well constructed, and strikes a chord with anyone who can appreciate a good and epic story. Whilst I was a bit sceptical of seeing Jack Black play the obnoxious Carl Denham you will find that Black’s interpretation of the character suits perfectly. Naomi Watts (Aussie Actress, yippee!) is brilliant as Ann, and carries the film emotion vividly, which would not have been an easy task considering the astounding characterisation of Kong. For a CG character, you can literally ‘feel’ every emotion he expresses. Congratulations to both Andy Serkis and WETA Digital for being able to so perfectly emulate genuine emotions in Kong, contributing to the most convincingly emotional CG character the silver screen has ever seen!

The effects on Kong are THE BEST CG imaging I have ever seen! Hats off to WETA Digital for raising the bar yet again. The dinosaurs however, whilst not as good, are convincing enough (if you are actually paying attention to the story and events rather than just the CG). The reason for them not looking AS good as Kong are both because: Kong is the centrepiece (the longest developed CG Character to date I might add) and also because the Dinosaurs (except for the T-Rexs, which in my opinion looked great!) were almost always heavily mixed with the real characters and there were always many in close proximity (you remember the Canyon Scene? A headache for any CG animator, I assure you). But as I said, if you are willing to compromise you opinion of the film based on the CG shortcomings (but there are hardly any, mind you) then you would probably be suited to seeing one of the many, many lesser titles this season instead.

The music was superb! My other hat goes off to James Newton Howard for his ability to score the film with significantly less time than usual (only 2 months!). Originally Howard Shore was meant to score the film but after a disagreement with Jackson, Shore and Jackson both agreed that their professional relationship would be preserved if Jackson was able to find another composer for Kong. That being said, after hearing Newton Howard's amazing musical score in Kong I can almost agree that Shore might have fallen short and not provided as much of a credible effort. The music is well paced, evenly spread and flows intuitively with the film’s turn of events. However, just like in ‘The Return of the King’ you will find Shore in a Cameo appearance as the conductor of the orchestra in the theatre Kong is on display, which I thought was very funny!

All in all, Kong in the best film I have seen in 2005. It may be long (3 hours and then some) but in true Peter Jackson style, every moment becomes part of a truly amazing story that you will not be disappointed with.

I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars.

-Cub. =o)

Cub, I'm glad to hear Jack Black wasn't a distraction to the film. I like him in goofy things, but the thought of him in a somewhat role, in a more serious movie, frightened me. I wasn't thinking that he couldn't act it well enough, but that his facial expressions would come off as goofy instead of serious. You have calmed my worries.

Man, now I have to see Narnia and King Kong soon. Oh well, that sounds more like fun and less like work.

~Keck

I saw Kong the other day, and though it was amazing, I left feeling kinda overwhelmed, in a bad way.
The pacing once on the island was WAY too hectic. Almost no ebb and flow, just Danger, danger, danger!!! I think about after the ..................
minor spoilers ahead, read at own risk................




















scene with the bugs and the "watcher in the water" homage, really put me off the rest of the film. Andy was more of a distraction than an asset in his onscreen role this time around.
Don't get me wrong, I thought it was remarkable, but dang, give me a chance to breathe.
Jen

Spolier (highlight text to see):

When Andy Serkis was dying, did you hear when he let out a Golum scream! It really cracked me up!

-Cub. =o)

Yes. Ironic.

BTW how do you do the spoiler thing? I haven't played around with the board long enough to learn how.
Could you tell me please????

Jen
You could do in in spoiler to keep it a secret!!! jk

Jen, my guess is he just changed the font color for that block to black, as that is the background of the board.

~Keck

I found the film too long.
And i didn't like all the "jurassik park"-like part of the movie.

Oh yea, and King Kong dies in the end. <-- WARNING SPOILER!!!

zarathoustra wrote:I found the film too long.
And i didn't like all the "jurassik park"-like part of the movie.

Oh yea, and King Kong dies in the end. <-- WARNING SPOILER!!!

AWW MAN! YOU PUT THE SPOILER AFTER THE COMMENT!!!! Now I can't see the movie! I know how it ends! I thought Kong would live this time :-p

Did anyone have someone spoil the ending of the Sixth Sense for them? Didn't that like so totally ruin the movie?

Yes, someone spoiled sixth sense for me. I punched him in the gut for it. Not an ounce of regret for doing it either!
Jen

I didn't have Sixth Sense spoiled for me but i did have the big twist in Final Fantasy 7 spoiled for me. That sucked.

Also, i probably would have seriously hurt anyone who spoiled Serenity (yeah, huge Firefly fan here) .

Ahh i read a topic like "Spoilers who spoil endings" and i think to myself Nope never had that done to me before.

Then i read some more and see this.

zarathoustra wrote:I found the film too long.
And i didn't like all the "jurassik park"-like part of the movie.

Oh yea, and King Kong dies in the end. <-- WARNING SPOILER!!!

U evil person u.

BTW do not take me sirius im realy quite normal when i take my meds.

I saw Kong on opening day. I thought it was nothing short of fabulous. My main complaint was that a few things were overdone. Too many dinosaurs of too many bugs. Twenty minutes could have been cut from those scenes and it would have been perfect. But then, can Peter jackson make a film under three hours?

Naomi Watts was fantastic as was the big guy himself.

I concur with the Doc's analysis of the movie. Incredible, to say the least.

Jack Black's portrayal of Carl Denem was just amazing.

Naomi Watts was beautiful and sensational as an anti-typical Ann Darrow.

Andy Serkis as King Kong shows us that his unique ability to create a memorable CGI a la Gollum isn't just a passing fancy.

I could go on forever with the rest of the cast and crew but it might bore some of you. So, I will conclude by saying that the new King Kong movie is a masterpiece that rivals the original. Could some of the scenes be edited to make a shorter movie? Sure! But it doesn't distract from the overall A+ rating from the old guy. Go see it; you won't be disappointed.

A few days ago, I went to see KK for the third time. My sister and brother-in-law were visiting from California and my brother-in-law (Raymond) always do a lot of movies when he comes.

Anyway, early into the movie, he turn to me and says "Zork!". I say "What?" He says, "That music. It's the music from Return to Zork." I listened....he was right!

Now, I don't have both themes right in front of me, so I can't say for sure...but when I logged on to http://www.unofficialtexmurphy.com, the piece of background music that happened to be playing from the website also sounded quite similar to the KK/RTZ theme. Apparently, one of the Tex Murphy themes also has this theme running through it.

I don't know which Tex theme it was, so now I have to go through all the audio files to try and identify it.

OK. I listned through all of the audio files. Check out the main repeating theme in Suite From the Pandora Directive. Starts about 1:13. in the mp3 file.

It's very similar to Return to Zork and to the King Kong theme.