Kong's Got A HUGE...Running Time

Hey guys, it's Donnie...Peter Jackson's King Kong clocks in right around three hours.

Is anyone really surprised?

The man who redefined the word "epic" in Hollywood has remade his favorite movie of all time and the running time is longer than the original by over an hour? Some might call it indulgent, (in fact, some already have) but personally, I don't mind in the slightest. In fact, if it had been anything less than two and half hours I would have been disappointed. I'm not even a huge Kong fan, but if you're gonna let PJ do Kong, you might as well let him run wild and go balls to the wall.

Besides, in the grand scheme of things, three hours is really not all that long, if you're used to watching quality films. Batman Begins was two hours and twenty minutes, and I don't think the extra 40 minute is really all that extreme. The first two Lord Of The Rings were each about three hours, and I didn't really get bored with those. Jackson seems to have learned that if you're gonna make a long movie, you have to pull the audience in from the very beginning and not let go till the very end. If you prefer 90 minute schlock...well, you're probably not reading this anyway.

That's not to say that a movie has to be a marathon to be any good. I'm just saying that if your movie is three hours long then it's because either a) you can't edit for shit and your movie is probably absolute garbage or b) you've crafted something larger than life, full of detail and texture and you need absolutely every frame for all three hours to tell the story properly.

I guess I'm willing to give Peter Jackson the benefit of the doubt.