I have a confession to make. I saw King Kong a couple of weeks ago and... I didn't like it.
Working in an office of computer geeks who mostly worship the ground on which Peter Jackson thanks to his bladder-testing Tolkien epics, this is a dangerous thing to say. Its a bit like asking the direction to Mecca and unrolling a prayer mat anywhere near Dubya or his good ol' boys.
So where did this lavish film fail? Interestingly, I rather enjoyed the first chapter, before they arrived at the island. None of the characters were particularly appealing, but the film bumbled along happily enough. Maybe it was just that I hadn't finished off my Hagen Daas by that point. It all began to get tragic when the island appeared. This is where the Lucas effect kicked in.
"But what, Newly, is the Lucas effect?" I hear you cry. Its quite simple. This is where a director makes a film so wildly successful and popular that no-one dares to tell him that what he's doing at the moment is really a little bit rubbish. Hence nobody told Peter "Lord Of The Rings" Jackson that what he was churning out would embarrass a student film maker, and no amount of gloss is going to cover up the cracks. Instead they said "Its jolly good, Pete! And my, haven't you lost weight."
I shudder to think how many great low budget films got sacrificed on the altar of the big Gorilla.
Maybe next time he'll remake "Bad Taste". Particularly the bit with the chainsaw and the puke.
