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KING KONG
By now, everything about Kong has been said and a lot of it’s right: it runs a little long, the action is exhilarating once they hit Skull Island, the relationship between Naomi Watts and the giant monkey is genuinely touching. Some people have read romantic love into it, some see sexual desire. Kong’s relationship with Ann Darrow registered to me as the same kind of friendship Snoopy has with Woodstock. It’s an “Oh my little friend of friends,” beagle hugging the little yellow bird sort of friendship, which I’ve thought was sweet since the day I started reading Peanuts as a kid. I’ve not been shy in stating I hate that first hour. To wit: I hate the first hour of Kong. The New York stuff is interesting but the long, plodding sequence on the boat made me bored and miserable. Subplots set up that amounted to nothing, ancillary characters you don’t much care for whose stories don’t pay off. Kong hasn’t been quite the 800 lb gorilla it was hyped to be at the box office but it’s a flawed, overlong masterpiece. Two hours of it is amazing filmmaking.
- John Orquiola
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