King Kong (2005)

The latest version of the 1933 classic film from Peter Jackson who is now in position for making the epic films after his exploits with the Lord of the Ring trilogy. This is a more direct remake of the original story with the characters using the same names with some slight changes to their roles in the film but ultimately they fulfil the same roles as the original.

The biggest difference between this film and the original are the size of the set pieces, from my experience this is the biggest issue that most people have is the fact that a couple of scenes go to far in stretching the believability of even the extreme situation they are in. The dinosaurs stampeding is one of them, the fact that fewer incidents with the people, the vines and the T-Rex fight and the bug attack are all points that stick out where you watch and go that is very clever but really? It takes you out of the film some what.

The best part of the film though is Kong portrayed by Andy Serkis using motion capture technology and while they do put some human emotions on an animal still you can see an intelligence in the eyes of the beast. This is 4 stars, simply for the effects and the tie in to the original film. Worth seeing so you can see what they can do with special effects these days.

Gulliver's Travels (2010)

So this film was the second film to carry the Orange sponsorship before films where the actors did a bit about phone advertising with the slogan don't let a mobile ruin your film in UK cinemas. I used it as timing to go to the toilet and so the joke with this film when I watched it was that I would need to go to the toilet all the time when i saw Jack Black. To be honest I would have been better going to the toilet several times during this film. So you have Jack Black taking on the titular role and doing what he normally does with the zany comedy that you either like or loathe.

I seem to loathe it, however I did not hate all of this film, there were some good performances by some good British actors including Catherine Tate, Billy Connolly and James Corden you also have good performances from Jason Segel, Emily Blunt, Amanda Peet and Chris O'Dowd. This is a kids film though and you get that from the jokes and the nature of what Jack gets up to. To be honest I did not really enjoy it and would not recommend it.

So only 1 star for me and even for the kids it is not worth the time.