So Mel and I finally got the time, on what was yet another miserable day weather wise, to go catch a movie. We were tossing up between seeing “The Chronicles of Narnia” and “King Kong” with the big hairy Ape being shelved in our initial consideration.
I knew that “Narnia” was going to be good but I just wasn’t sure how geared towards kids it was going to be. I was pleasently surprised that this masterpiece which apparently took nearly 5 years to complete was absolutely ageless in terms of the audience it will appeal to. Perfectly casted with mostly unknowns, Liam Neeson was outstanding as the voice of “Aslan” the Lion King in the Kingdom of Narnia, and Tilda Swinton turns on a magnificently cold performance as the White Witch.
In the tradition of the LOTR trilogy, Narnia is a bit of a marathon which I reckon would play havoc with some of the youngsters likely to be lining up at the box office, but with incredible CGI scenes like the final battle against the White Witch and her army, it’s worth every last minute of your attention. A DEFINITE DVD-to-buy flick!
Surprise, surprise, when we exited the cinema early evening the conditions outside were still on the miserable side of things so we took a minute to reflect on what our next step was going to be for the night. It was about now that I had the brilliant idea of us just walking into the next session of “King Kong” thereby us not missing out on either of the two flicks we really wanted to see.
With the “Paramount” cinema complex on Burrard Street consisting of three levels of theatres with only one point of ticket checking, at the bottom of the first escalator in the foyer on ground level, replenishing our munchie supplies and taking our seat for round two of movies for the day couldn’t have been any easier. Considering how ridiculous the pricing is on a movie ticket these days we didn’t feel the least bit guilty either despite some nervous moments as the large theatre we had taken up residence in filled to capacity pretty quickly. The last thing we wanted was for some paying customers to miss out on seats and then have staff coming around checking tickets!
As the opening previews began to roll, however, we knew we were in the clear and we sat back and enjoyed yet another marathon flick about an overgrown ape and a woman he falls in love with. What to say about “King Kong”? Well… there’s no doubting the visual treat that director Peter Jackson (of “Lord of the Rings” fame) serves up and once again the casting is spot on. I’m not sure if it’s because we had been sitting down for so long and were getting tired or if “Narnia” had really impressed us that much, but our “King Kong” did seem a little drawn out in places. The epic battle between Kong and a T-Rex for instance. While stunning in it’s execution, it just seemed to go on and on with no benefit to the overall storyline.
When all was said and done we were quite chuffed with ourselves and our 2-for-1 effort especially considering they were both great flicks.
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