Monkey love
I went to see King Kong last night, and it’s that rare thing: a three-hour film that doesn’t suck (although it could easily have lost half an hour towards the beginning). The CGI’s great, the fight scenes are top-notch, and the only thing that marred it for me was the frequent vertigo-inducing camerawork.
Peter Jackson is very fond of showing the view from very, very high-up places, which isn’t a lot of fun when you’re terrified of heights. The rational bit of your brain knows that you’re looking at a picture, but the primal scaredy-cat bit of your brain is going “AAAAGH! AAAAAGH! AAAAAGH!” throughout the film.
Oh, and close your eyes in the Spider Pit scene if you’re scared of creepy crawlies.
On a related note, I’m becoming increasingly convinced that the 12A certificate (which Kong has) is a bad idea. There’s some pretty nasty stuff in the movie, which clearly scared the utter crap out of the six-year-old a few rows in front (whose parents were nowhere to be seen; presumably they’d dumped the wean in the cinema and then spent the night in the bar).
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Comments
Oh, I understand the rationale, but cinema ratings aren’t just to protect kiddies: they’re to protect the grown-ups from having to share a cinema with kiddies :)
We don’t need government certification for that. We just need cinemas to spot the gap in the market for adults-only screenings. Which some of them already have: I remember the UGC had a no-unaccompanied-kids-after-nine policy. (Or maybe it was ten. Whatever.)
I thought the film censors were moving very much in the direction of ‘guidelines’ anyway. The whole point is that it is your choice - and your fault - if you leave a six year old to see something terrifying when we’ve given you a hint (via the rating) that you should think carefully about it.
A refreshing alternative to the nanny state IMO. So I like the certificate.
I’m fairly certain Tony Blair has to sign something before I’m allowed to do anything dangerous like crossing the road these days doesn’t he? ;-)