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King Kong

King Kong

List Price: $14.99
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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Dismal.
Review: Why is it that anyone doing a re-make of a classic film thinks they can sell it on name alone?

This is pretty tame stuff. The movie-making team of the original have been replaced by an uninteresting expedition looking for oil, and any drama and tension has been replaced by a Fay Wray-wannabe cuddling a giant rubber finger.

And where are the monsters? The scenes on the island were the most exciting parts of the original Kong, but in the re-make all we get is what appears to be a giant draught-excluder. The makers of this claimed they had no money for stop-motion, but they still found the cash to build a giant robot Kong which appears on the screen for all of 3 seconds. The robot is stiff and lifeless, and looks nothing like the man-in-a-suit seen throughout most of the film. There is an attempt to modernise the story, with the World Trade Centre standing in for the Empire State Building, but the whole thing is too self-aware, too bland, and lacks the wonder, awe and gripping sense of danger present in the 1933 film.

The film's only real good point is the soundtrack, which is very atmospheric, but that alone can't stop this re-make from being anything other than a mistake and a disaster.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Still as entertaining as it was 24 years ago !
Review: Watching this movie again after more than 20 years on DVD is a surprising experience. After all these years, the movie is still entertaining. Of course the special effect is nowhere as grant as recent monster movie but still looks better than those cheap Roger Corman's dinosaur movies. The picture quality of the DVD is excellent. The remastered 5.1 Dolby Digital doesn't have much surround activities but has good deep bass. Highly recommended DVD.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: OK remake.
Review: Though certainly not up to the level of the 1933 original, this film does have its moments. The spfx are good(excepting the stiff robot Kong used for a few long shots). The giant snake is pretty disappointing, making one long for the original's parade of prehistoric monstrosities. The score is decent, adding much to the proceedings. Unfortunately, the campy attitude exhibited by the filmmakers and played up by the cast nearly sinks the whole film. Gone is the awe and wonder of the original Kong. In its place is a plethora of knowing smirks and goofy jokes. Still, this film is fun and diverting, though it will NEVER make anyone forget the REAL King Kong!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: JESSICA LANGE `S DEBUT - MMMMM
Review: This was the first film of KING KONG that I saw. I immediatly fell in love with it. Over the years I have been infuritated by critics who doesn`t seem to dare liking this film. They always compare it unfavourbly to the -33 classic. Right. It doesn`t have the thrills and excitement of the original. BUT. This is a low key fable. A telling of the Beauty and the Beast... A lovely score by John Barry, great photography and the debut of the greatest actress in American movies of the 80s: JESSICA LANGE. She demonstrated further abileties in FRANCES, THE COUNTRY, THE MUSIC BOX, TOOTSIE(Oscar Best Supporting Actress) and BLUE SKY(Oscar Best Actress). I really do hope that the 1976 version of KING KONG will find peace with some critics and I`m delighted that so many others here like it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: king kong is the king
Review: king kong rocks it is way better then the origanial.if you are a king kong fan you will like it.some other kong movies you might like are king konglives son of kong and king kong vs. godzilla

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: This Kong could be your pet
Review: I've always preferred the remake of KING KONG to the original (classic though it is). They are two different kinds of movies. I've always thought the remake has never gotten a fair shake. And where is a deluxe re-issue of that great score by John Barry? Barry ties with John Williams as my all-time favorite film composer. The movie pulls me in, and involves me in a way the original never did (or could for a child of the 70's/80's weened on STAR WARS and the like). There are few sequences in movies I've seen more nerve-wracking than the last half-hour of KONG '76. Imagine having a puppy or a kitten playing in the road with a big Mack truck coming fast. You plead for the little critter to come back, but it just looks at you with big, happy eyes and it's tail wagging. You know what's going to happen, but the little beast doesn't. Now magnify your pet in size and species several times, and instead of a Mack truck add the NYPD, National Guard, and the Air Force, and you may understand what I mean by KONG '76. With every viewing of this movie, my heart is screaming with Jessica Lange on top of the World Trade Center: "Hold on to me or they'll kill you!" And I pray that this time Fido will come home. KONG '76 has always moved me more than KONG '33, because the big ape is treated, at least by the audience, with more compassion and reverence. In the original all the macho, James Cagney wanna-bes bluster around boasting how they're going to put this big galoot in its place. "We'll teach him fear!" brags Carl Denham. Charles Grodin's Fred Wilson doesn't really care if the ape is scared of him, he's in it for the pay-off, and finally he pays the price Denham, Driscoll and all the other "good guys" in the original should have paid. KONG '76 is like OLD YELLER. Just when you're starting to understand him, he goes berserk and "has to be put down." I don't class KONG '76 as a monster movie. It's not scary in a "menacing monster" sense (though there are hair-raising moments), and the big beast has a method to it's madness (a la Frankenstein's Monster). I personally feel its a Disney-like animal movie with a twist. They couldn't update the story of big ape without considering people's updated attitudes about a big ape. I'd venture that in the Depression-era animal rights were virtually unheard of. To paraphrase Mr. DeLaurentiis: "When monkey die, everybody SHOULD cry."

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Better (and sexier) than the Original!
Review: I first saw this King Kong when it came out in 1976 and loved it! I've seen it a zillion times since then, and still do! But I've watched in helpless horror as critics have trashed its memory. I even began to doubt my own memories! The truth is, King Kong was the top money-maker for 1976, beating out Rocky, and ended up one of the top for the decade and made Jessica Lange a star. Audiences loved it! The original 1933 version is good, but it was for kids; this version is far more emotionally involving -- and it's for adults. It's serious story-telling in its own funny way. Really, would today's Hollywood dare end a boy-girl love story the way Jack-Dwan's romance ends here? And, given that the whole King Kong plot is inherently unbelievable, it's amazing how seriously Jeff Bridges and (a very sexy) Jessica Lange played their parts. And Charles Grodin was great hamming it up ("Let's not get eaten alive on this island--bring the mosquito spray!") Much of the criticism has been directed at the scene where Dwan chews out Kong. But how do you act when faced with a 40-foot gorilla in love? The 1933 King Kong had Fay Wray spend most of the picture screaming! Even the movie's harshest critics, though, admit they cared for Kong by the climax. Tragedy, horror, great special effects, and a very sexy Jessica Lange wet under a waterfall scene--what more could you ask for? How about a 40-foot tall robot gorilla -- even if it only shows up in the Shea Stadium scene!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Jessica Lange in a sacrificial outfit..whew!
Review: OK so its not the original...De Lauretnis' only screw up was the millions he spent on the giant robot Kong that looks like it belongs in a Godzilla film. Baker in a monkey suit is absolutley stunning. The score is very haunting, and brings images of a tropical island, surrounded by fog, and the legend of the giant creaure...from thy wedding with the creature that touches heaven....lady god preserve thee...wow. Jeff Bridges is excellent as the Harvard anthropologist/throw-back to the flower-power generation, and opposite him is the wonderfully evil and greedy Fred S. Wilson, wonderfully portayed by Chuck Grodin in that actor's finest work. But the star of the show, absolutley oozing sexuality/sensuality is Jessica Lange as Dwan. She is so breathless/helpless in the opening scene, wearing only a wet, tiny black cocktail dress that one wonders how a shipful of lonely woman-starved sailors dont pounce on her and rip it off her! DeLaurentis obviously likes to see Langes' flesh, as she is dressed like a dancer at a gentlemen's club on duty, while on the ship...Daisy duke short-shorts that she is bursting out of and mini-shirts are all she wears on board...again, what must those sailors have been plotting. The natives steal her and dress her in a scanty harem outfit, that Kong eventially strips from her...highly erotic stuff for a PG film, too bad it was'nt a hard R but then it was aimed at the kiddies...Again for the New York scene, she is decked out like Donald Trump's date for New Year's Eve, in a blue sequined backless gown. She is beyond sexy/gorgeous. The end is sad, and ironic as she is finally a star, tragically. Poor Jack keeps trying to get lucky.."Jack, buy me a drink" (Running through a deserted NYC alley, pausing breathless by a bar) Jack says,"@ more blocks and we got the key to a grat apartmen!" Cant say I blame the man.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: awsome movie
Review: Most people might think that I'm weird, but I think the 1976 king kong is a hundred times better than the original. I like the gate better, the native's chant, and the actors. King kong himself is better. I hated the original ending, I liked how Dwan(Jessica Lange) didn't want king kong killed at the end. The old one is a little too much of a fantasy. How could the natives build a wall that size out of such heavy material? The 1976 has it made out of wood, that could certainly be true.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: ...remake
Review: It's rather amazing that Jessica Lange ever worked as anactress after starring in this turkey of an ape movie. They basicallyripped apart the story by just having Kong living alone on the island.Only one large fight with a giant snake and no dinosaurs in sight. ... Unbelievabe love story between Lange and Bridges (no chemistry there) and Kong climbing the World Trade Center lacked the excitement that the 1933 Kong's climb to the Empire State Building had. ... Watch the 1933 King Kong instead... END


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