“Now that Peter Jackson’s King

“Now that Peter Jackson’s King Kong has been released as a two-disc DVD, enterprising fans will undoubtedly find a way to upload the 188-minute film and trim it down to a more dynamic running time,” writes DVD/Laser Newsletter editor Doug Pratt. Please! If someone does this soon, I will provide a link and do my part to bring viewers to it. Jackson’s Kong is the ultimate example of a film that plays pretty well the first viewing (exciting after the 70 minute mark!…that fun dino run!), and gets weaker and weaker the more you think back upon it. Repeat after me — Jackson has no discpline, has no discipline, has no discipline. “As it stands, the film plays like Jackson had gotten confused in the production rush and released the ‘DVD Director’s Cut’ to theaters by mistake,” says Pratt. “Jackson achieved a pinnacle of motion picture art with his extended DVD editions of the three Lord of the Rings films, but he appears to have lost touch with the realities of moviemaking in the process. A good hour of King Kong, and maybe even more, does not belong in the theatrical release of what should have been a brisk, spectacular romp.” And who else to blame? Stacy Sher and the other executive cowards at Universal who saw Kong relatively early and said, “Great!”…instead of, “Peter? We love you and your film, but you need to trim that first 70 minutes down to 30 or even 20 minutes.”

• Tweet