orichalcum

Spoiler-free part: Well, it's a Peter Jackson movie. That means, in this case, that there were a bunch of "wow, that's amazingly cool" moments and "wow, that looks realistic" and "wow, this movie is going on forever and we're only at Lothlorien, oops, I mean, Manhattan."

Other important spoiler-free notes:

If you are at all squeamish, and in particular if you are squeamish about slimy and/or crawly things, I strongly recommend that you be prepared to close your eyes and, if possible, have a hand to grip tightly. I would say that I spent about 15 minutes of the movie, at least, Not Watching. That said, A. said they were really cool and nifty slimy and crawly things.

The other Big Amusing Spoiler-free thing (well, unless you haven't seen any of the teasers or buzz at all) is that the first two acts are _totally_ a Cthulhu module. I swear you can point out some of the San check failure moments, and I could write the character background and relationships page for each of the "PC" main characters. And it does a remarkably good job of solving the classic Cthulhu problem of "why the heck aren't we turning around and going home right now?" without having to resort to dodges like "because you're in the middle of the siege of Stalingrad" or "you're in a nuclear submarine." Piratecat, if you're reading this, KidCthulhu will love at least the first two-thirds of this movie. Take her.



So, the big problem in some sense is that Kong isn't sympathetic enough. Yes, the humans ultimately treat him awfully, and it's nice that he treats his pet blonde girl so well, but one of the first things you know about him is the rows and rows of skeletons of Previous Sacrifice Victims Who Couldn't Juggle. Kong's in it for his own amusement, and he's totally willing and even happy to kill what doesn't amuse him or what tries to bar him from his toys.

In lots of ways, I would have liked this movie more if it had ended with the escape from Skull Island (also about 45 minutes earlier), with Kong dying in the water as they escape. Because I loved the romance between _incredibly hot_ Adrien Brody and plucky Naomi Watts, and the first-mate/cabin boy dynamic was great, and the producer, Driscoll, was a totally awesome love-to-hate-him character (in Cthulhu terms, you can totally see what his psychosis is, and I'd love to play that character.) Baxter, the lead actor was fun, although clearly played by one of the weaker PCs (in my mental reimagining), as was the Captain.

But yeah - the ship and the character introduction was awesome, and the exploration of the island was terrific, and the fights were mostly great. The savages were a little over-the-top for my taste, and why exactly are they black when we're in the South Pacific? Also, I didn't actually feel that we needed real dinosaurs on top of everything else - I preferred the "everything is just much larger" here dynamic of the other beasties. BTW, is it just me or does Jackson have a thing about spiders?

But then we get back to NYC, which is awesome because it's the 1930s, but by then I'm pretty tired, and don't really need to see Kong beating up on some poor trolley passengers and murdering several women just because they have the bad luck to be blonde. The skating scene was cute but didn't fundamentally change my perception of him. And the ESB scene just went on too long, and all my sympathies were still with Adrien Brody.

So basically - Act I and II, two thumbs up. Act III - ehhh...