Kong: Skull Island

IncognitoMan · 12-03-2017 08:36PM

zerks wrote: »

As a popcorn flick I can't complain.Some decent set pieces but Tom Hiddlestone was woefully miscast.The young lad enjoyed it but found it dragged a bit in places and he got bored.He was happy to see "the secret bit at the end" after the credits as 99% of the people there left as soon ad they started rolling.

To be fair the after credits scene could have gone after the films main star's names rolled across the screen. Those were some very long credits to sit through. There was some amount of names just for visual affects.

Film was decent in itself. Fairly predictable at times and some of the most impressive shots were given away in the trailer. That shot with Kong standing in front of the rising (or setting can't remember which) sun was amazing to see on the big screen.

Human characters aren't really up to much but its fine as I think the stuff with Kong delivered for the most part.

Also Starring LeVar Burton · 13-03-2017 12:03AM

I enjoyed it quite a lot. Much better than I was expecting.

Cantona's Collars · 13-03-2017 12:19AM

It took just over $61 million in it's opening weekend in the US.

IncognitoMan · 13-03-2017 12:57AM

zerks wrote: »

It took just over $61 million in it's opening weekend in the US.

16998990_724892951025260_6920577901000191419_n.jpg?oh=06eeb30789c4b53eb962dda4a9dc5db7&oe=5973E0AE

Is that good or bad? What was it expected to make?

Cantona's Collars · 13-03-2017 01:58AM

IncognitoMan wrote: »

Is that good or bad? What was it expected to make?

It was projected to make $45-€50 million.

Mitch Connor · 13-03-2017 09:17AM

I thought it was kinda 'meh'.

A lot of expensive looking visuals and shots just didn't land with me, and it put me off. Some of the deaths were hard to understand - one in particular tried to straddle some sort of comedic/sad line and just came off weird.

The after credits scene being foreshadowed by the credits themselves, and teasing a movie/premise we have already seen came off as a bit weird to me too.

Tony EH · 13-03-2017 11:55AM

zerks wrote: »

It took just over $61 million in it's opening weekend in the US.

Not pointing any fingers at you Zerks, but I hate the way this has become a thing with films.

It's like this is supposed to mean anything? That it's some sort of indication of something other than the amount of people that bought tickets to a film they knew, relatively, nothing about.

Again, not having a go at you, it's just a bit baffling when I see it. It doesn't tell anyone anything about the quality of the film or it's staying power. It's a strange metric.

ancapailldorcha · 13-03-2017 11:58AM

Tony EH wrote: »

It's like this is supposed to mean anything?

To studios, it means everything. It's why we never got a Dredd sequel while being buried in installments of various franchises like Fast and Furious. If a film doesn't turn a profit, then there is an incentive for the studio to cut their losses.

Tony EH · 13-03-2017 12:15PM

I'm talking specifically about opening weekend takes. Not overall BO.

Sure, the money men at the studios register it. But to the average joe going to see the film, it's pretty meaningless.

ancapailldorcha · 13-03-2017 01:01PM

Tony EH wrote: »

I'm talking specifically about opening weekend takes. Not overall BO.

I think a sizeable portion of the film's revenue comes from the opening weekend so it makes for a good indicator of how well it will do.

Tony EH wrote: »

Sure, the money men at the studios register it. But to the average joe going to see the film, it's pretty meaningless.

Unless it does extremely well at which point it becomes a marketing tool.

silverharp · 13-03-2017 01:42PM

It was raining so decided to take my son to it, didn't read anything about it and he hadn't seen any king kong movies before, I just said we'd go in with no expectations. Its too predictable a setup to be "gripping" but it started well and there were good scenic shots, were all those islands real or CGI?

I don't think its good enough for a franchise and if they make a second it probably wont do as well, my son had said there might be a scene at the end but weren't ars3d staying to see it.

constitutionus · 13-03-2017 03:09PM

Tony EH wrote: »

I'm talking specifically about opening weekend takes. Not overall BO.

Sure, the money men at the studios register it. But to the average joe going to see the film, it's pretty meaningless.

to the casual cinema goer yeah.

but anyone that goes regularly knows that if a flim doesnt do well in its first week you can kiss goodbye any thought of a sequel unless something truly exceptional occurs. the drop off of bums on seats the following weeks drops dramatically (50% plus or more is not unusual ) so it does matter.

take Dredd for instance.

brilliant film, but i knew it was dead in the water the weekend it came out. so even with the massive fan/critic support behind it and great DVD sales we wont be getting a second one.

kong SI is getting savaged by critics, but that 61mil opening means your getting more.

Tony EH · 13-03-2017 03:29PM

I'm sure that there's been plenty of films that have done so-so business that have got sequels. Mind you, I can't think of any off hand.

As for 'Dredd', I kinda knew that it was going to be a one off. Judge Dredd has never really taken America, like he did over this side of the Atlantic. He;s just not "superhero" enough and actually a pretty scathing critique of the US anyway. Judge Dredd, although set in a future America, is still very..."British". I have to say I wasn't really surprised when it didn't do that well in the States. Plus, an awful lot of people thought that the story was ripping off 'The Raid'.

Either way, I just cannot see too many punters giving a crap about opening weekend takes. If it's a film they're are interested in going to see, they'll probably do so anyway and if there are people who measure whether a film is worth going to see or not based on the money it took in on its opening weekend...they're, frankly, doing it wrong.

IncognitoMan · 13-03-2017 03:54PM

Tony EH wrote: »

if there are people who measure whether a film is worth going to see or not based on the money it took in on its opening weekend...they're, frankly, doing it wrong.

I think there are some crossed wires here. Nobody is saying that a film making money is a reason to go see a film. But if you hope to see a sequel to a film you liked then it has to do well and opening weeks are usually good indicators unless it has other markets to open in later e.g China.

People here talking about opening weekend numbers I imagine have some level of interest in the Godzilla vs Kong vs other monsters films that are said to be coming further down the road. Hence the interest in the financials.

mloc123 · 13-03-2017 04:04PM

Saw this over the weekend... not great.

The biggest issue I had was... it had some identity crisis. Was it meant to be serious or not? The tone of the movie jumped around so much. The main(?) two characters (Hiddlestone, Larson) felt like they were dropped in here from another movie. I think overall it would have helped greatly if it was a little more light hearted and about 20mins shorter.

Tony EH · 13-03-2017 04:10PM

IncognitoMan wrote: »

I think there are some crossed wires here. Nobody is saying that a film making money is a reason to go see a film. But if you hope to see a sequel to a film you liked then it has to do well and opening weeks are usually good indicators unless it has other markets to open in later e.g China.

Surely, over all BO would be a better gauge on whether there'll be a sequel or not? Maybe it's an indicator as you say, but I'm always left with a so what in my head when I hear about an opening weekend gross.

In any case, I spose I'll just always find it a weird thing that's attached to internet scuttlebutt about a film.

silverharp · 13-03-2017 11:02PM

the huff post being a bit special :rolleyes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aySHfEz2oRw

Elvisjuice · 13-03-2017 11:20PM

saw it today it was trying to be two things , it could have been epic if they kept it dark and mean , and avoided the iffy humour and silly ww2 subplot crap .Kong himself was class

Tony EH · 14-03-2017 10:44AM

silverharp wrote: »

the huff post being a bit special :rolleyes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aySHfEz2oRw

This isn't new.

I had a conversation with a black lad I know, around the time that Peter Jackson made his crappy remake, who first introduced me to this "theory". One I'd never heard of before. I'd said that I'd probably seen the 30's 'King Kong' about 20 times and it would never have struck me as a "racial" anything. Just that it was a monster movie with quaint but endearing special effects.

He went on to say that it was "easy" to see that Kong was supposed to be a black man coming to take white women. I replied that if you see a 50ft gorilla as a "black man", then it's in your own head. That certainly wasn't what I was seeing on the screen.

Plus, Kong is the centre piece of the film. He's who you sympathise with in a sea of pretty unlikable characters (Fay Wray apart). Audiences felt sad when Kong was killed.

I'm sure there are people who view 'King Kong' as a "racist" film, if they try hard enough. But, to me that means that they're just missing out on one of the greatest films ever made.

ancapailldorcha · 14-03-2017 10:47AM

Tony EH wrote: »

I'm sure there are people who view 'King Kong' as a "racist" film, if they try hard enough. But, to me that means that they're just missing out on one of the greatest films ever made.

There are people who'll see anything as racist or sexist or whatever to be honest, even Thomas the Tank Engine.

silverharp · 14-03-2017 11:16AM

Tony EH wrote: »

This isn't new.

I had a conversation with a black lad I know, around the time that Peter Jackson made his crappy remake, who first introduced me to this "theory". One I'd never heard of before. I'd said that I'd probably seen the 30's 'King Kong' about 20 times and it would never have struck me as a "racial" anything. Just that it was a monster movie with quaint but endearing special effects.

He went on to say that it was "easy" to see that Kong was supposed to be a black man coming to take white women. I replied that if you see a 50ft gorilla as a "black man", then it's in your own head. That certainly wasn't what I was seeing on the screen.

Plus, Kong is the centre piece of the film. He's who you sympathise with in a sea of pretty unlikable characters (Fay Wray apart). Audiences felt sad when Kong was killed.

I'm sure there are people who view 'King Kong' as a "racist" film, if they try hard enough. But, to me that means that they're just missing out on one of the greatest films ever made.

I havnt followed this movie but thankfully this huff post piece seems to be the only attempt at seeing everything though problematic glasses. I had stumbled over a reaction vid to this which dismantled every "point" in this video. so consider it pure invention in the mind of someone that ironically would need to be a bit racist to see a connection in the first place :pac:

Sad Professor · 14-03-2017 11:19AM

I wouldn't consider the original King King racist, but it was made in a racist time and was green-lit on the back of the success of Ingagi, a racist pre-code exploitation film about black tribes women having sex with gorillas which convinced RKO that there was an audience for a movie about a gorilla kidnapping a sexy girl. Monkey movies were a thing during the 20s and depicting African-Americans as apes was nothing new.

Ipso · 14-03-2017 02:40PM

The Huffington Post is more or less Breitbart for liberals.

hungry hypno toad · 14-03-2017 02:45PM

silverharp wrote: »

the huff post being a bit special :rolleyes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aySHfEz2oRw

Was expecting something about Trump, but got racism instead. Stay classy, Huff.

pixelburp · 14-03-2017 02:59PM

I enjoyed this by & large, and was a more openly fun, breezy adventure than Godzilla (if we're going to see crossovers with these monsters, it seems fair to compare & contrast). And for those who remember or grew up similar to myself, Skull Island seemed somewhat influenced - aside from the more obvious sources such as Heart of Darkness / Apocalypse Now - by those old Doug McClure monster films from the 70s. In a good way I should add, but that could be my youthful enthusiasm for all things Creature Feature.

It felt like an old-fashioned, schlocky adventure movie, and taken within that spirit I had a good time. The characters were weak & one dimensional, but that's hardly a crime for these kind of features, and to compare with Godzilla they still had a snappy charisma that was demonstrably absent in the dour, overly-serious predecessor.

The directorial creative flourishes were also a pleasant surprise: Jordan Vogt-Roberts added many compositions & touches that added a little life and character to the frame. The easy thing would have been just to point & shoot and let the FX house go wild, but he played with the camera with a certain amount of stylishness. Only quibble would be the actual Kong fight scenes, where the director failed to properly capture the sheer scale and heft of Kong himself; in that respect Godzilla was the better picture here, Gareth Edwards showing a nous for giving the titular character the kind of slow weight you'd expect from such a giant creature (even in Rogue One, Edwards showed an ability for capturing scale, only this time with gigantic space ships).

All that said, one definite minus point was for the studio interference that felt a little endemic in the final product; the tone could be all over the place, and once John C Reilly's character appeared, a weird undercurrent of goofiness crept in that definitely jarred with everything else, particularly Samuel L Jackson's thirst for revenge.

Tony EH · 14-03-2017 03:00PM

Ipso wrote: »

The Huffington Post is more or less Breitbart for liberals.

Ok, let's not descend into the ridiculous now.

Tony EH · 14-03-2017 03:10PM

pixelburp wrote: »

Getting back to the actual film...

I enjoyed this by & large, and was a more openly fun, breezy adventure than Godzilla (if we're going to see crossovers with these monsters, it seems fair to compare & contrast) And for those who remember or grew up similar to myself, Skull Island seemed somewhat influenced - among the more obvious ones such as Heart of Darkness / Apocalypse Now - by those old Doug McClure monster films from the 70s. In a good way I should add, but that could be my youthful enthusiasm for all things Creature Feature.

It felt like an old-fashioned, schlocky adventure movie, and taken within that spirit I had a good time. The characters were weak & one dimensional, but that's hardly a crime for these kind of features, and to compare with Godzilla they still had a snappy charisma that was demonstrably absent in the dour, overly-serious predecessor.

Haven't seen it yet and probably won't until it's available to download or something. Not getting a good impression from people who have seen it.

As for 'Godzilla', I'm in the majority group that really enjoyed that picture. It does suffer from the fact that Cranston's character should have been the main star and not his boring arse of a son.

Re: Doug McClure ("You may remember from such films as..."), most of his monster movies were utter dreck. 'At the Earth's Core' - I'm looking at you! Although I will admit to having an unhealthy love of 'Warlords of Atlantis'.

pixelburp wrote: »

All that said, one definite minus point was for the studio interference that felt a little endemic in the final product; the tone could be all over the place, and once John C Reilly's character appeared, a weird undercurrent of goofiness crept in that definitely jarred with everything else, particularly Samuel L Jackson's thirst for revenge.

Oh dear.

pixelburp · 14-03-2017 03:15PM

Tony EH wrote: »

Re: Doug McClure ("You may remember from such films as..."), most of his monster movies were utter dreck. 'At the Earth's Core' - I'm looking at you! Although I will admit to having an unhealthy love of 'Warlords of Atlantis'.

I wasn't claiming otherwise, but Skull Island seems borne from a pedigree of that sort of film, of adventures in the mould of Haggard or HG Wells, the exploration of Lost Lands unknown to humankind, full of exotic dangers and the occasional dinosaur. There's an innocence in those type of stories that you just don't get these days - probably because the Earth no longer has any unexplored corners - that made this film all the more enjoyable IMO.

Honestly I think I have seen much, MUCH worse in the last 12 months to say Skull Island deserves the negative reviews it has received. It's a deeply flawed film, but there's still lots of fun to be had if watched with the right mindset.

Tony EH · 14-03-2017 03:34PM

pixelburp wrote: »

I wasn't claiming otherwise, but Skull Island seems borne from a pedigree of that sort of film, of adventures in the mould of Haggard or HG Wells, the exploration of Lost Lands unknown to humankind, full of exotic dangers and the occasional dinosaur. There's an innocence in those type of stories that you just don't get these days - probably because the Earth no longer has any unexplored corners - that made this film all the more enjoyable IMO.

Honestly I think I have seen much, MUCH worse in the last 12 months to say Skull Island deserves the negative reviews it has received. It's a deeply flawed film, but there's still lots of fun to be had if watched with the right mindset.

It's strange, these days, with internet opinions floating around all over the place. It's, ironically, more difficult to gauge whether I'm potentially interested in a film or not. Everyone has something to say, which is a good thing, but a lot of it is binary, which often is not, so enthusiasm for a given film gets confused. Coupled with the fact that the product, more often than not, doesn't live up to the hype/expectation, means that actual trips to the cinema are becoming rarer these days.

Mindset has a lot to do with how one first views a film, I agree, and viewed in the "proper" mindset, an otherwise flawed film can be pretty great. But, in the days of €15 a pop for a film in the cinema, the trips are getting less and less, mindset or not and if I'm forking out that for a picture, it needs to be good.

fluke · 14-03-2017 03:47PM

pixelburp wrote: »

Honestly I think I have seen much, MUCH worse in the last 12 months to say Skull Island deserves the negative reviews it has received. It's a deeply flawed film, but there's still lots of fun to be had if watched with the right mindset.

I have one question - better or worse than Pacific Rim?

Kong: Skull Island

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