By Timothy Chow

 You know what the problem with movies is these days? They're too long. I suppose it could be that the ones that I want to watch, and have watched, all happen to be lengthy stories, but something tells me that there's some glimmer of truth in my initial statement. The last three I've watched have averaged 2 hrs 41 minutes in length. While I suppose I shouldn't complain about the fact that I'm getting more bang for my (dad's) buck, when you have long movies playing, often the act of watching a movie becomes an event all in itself. Having to watch a movie becomes almost a chore requiring a purposive change in behavior and personal actions, waking up earlier, eating dinner later, rushing from place to place. Such were some of the things I had to do when catching Brokeback Mountain, MunichKing Kong.

Everyone knows it now, King Kong, Peter Jackson, 3 hour long story, supposed first half lag, second half awesomeness. Blah, blah, blah. Out of the three, this was by far the best movie. Never the one to shrink away from the gross technicalities of epics, Jackson's deft ability to handle the intimacies of human relationships with the gargantuan (harhar) task of compelling CGI and action scenes truly shines in this movie, and makes a three-hour long story a little more bearable.

The story is set in 1933 New York, just four years after Black Tuesday, with the cast embarking off to an undiscovered island to make a movie. The filming is done in this quaint early-picture style with lots of rapid edits and cuts that evoke the spirit of that era, and sets the tone for the rest of the first half of the movie. Understandably, many of the people of that time were poor, and desperation was high. Thus, we are introduced to Naomi Watt's character, Ann Darrow, one of those having trouble making ends meet. She's lucky though, she manages to land a part in a movie and that night, the cast and crew sail off to Singapore to film the movie. There's just a small hitch, however. The problem? They're not going to Singapore.

I don't want to recite the rest of the story because I won't do it justice, but I personally felt that the first two-thirds of the movie were actually better than the last third. There's a bit of mystery, a bit of romance, a bit of scariness, a bit of action - just everything that you'd expect from a 1933 story done with 2005 technical abilities. For quite a while there, I felt like a little kid again, like I was watching Jurassic Park for the first time and being blown away by the velociraptors in the kitchen. The pacing is really well thought-out, with action scenes nicely interspersed between more quiet moments. Even with those, the first hour and half, or so, are actually quite exciting times - an overwhelming sense of mystery and dread dominates the atmosphere of the film. The part where it starts unraveling is in the third chapter of the movie where it pulls off a The Lost World: Jurassic Park II.

You know that feeling of disconnect as if a scene is just randomly tacked on? It's not as pronounced here, in this movie, but there's certainly still an element of it, and the momentum built up in the first two chapters never really climaxes to its full potential...which is unfortunate to say the least. Non-flow or mood-wise, the characters are all pretty one-dimensional as is expected, but even then, it's curious that some of the storylines are never really sewn up. Loose ends, especially those involving the ship's crew, are all left to dangle and one can't help but wonder why Jimmy (played excellently by Jamie Bell) was so intent on saving Ann, or why Bruce Baxter suddenly became all so heroic.

I guess it's not really a movie about the plausibility or examination of the human psyche (OR IS IT, no seriously, the whole Heart of Darkness wannabe thing), yet these nagging questions combined with the general lackluster third section reduces the overall enjoyment. It's not a bad movie, in fact, it's actually really good, but by the end, the movie drops the skill that balanced all the elements from the first two chapters and doesn't ever come to address the issues of plot and mood that were so crucial to its initial success. A somewhat disappointed 4 out of 5 stars.
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