I saw King Kong tonight and lo, it was good. Not great [a little too long and for some reason the sound sucked ass] but still it was a welcome treat, full of gratuitous primate-on-dinosaur action and dripping with pathos. Yum!

One thing that I couldn’t help noticing was how bad some of the animation and matting was – and I don’t think it was a "style choice." I feel like maybe CGI has peaked in recent years, with diminishing returns for every new innovation/extra million bucks spent meaning that we won’t see any more quantum leaps in verisimilitude for a while. Or maybe it’s just evidence of a more pragmatic approach, so that important elements (like Kong’s face, which looks brilliant, especially when he’s eating) are where the resources are spent, and long shots of guys being chased by dinosurs are outsourced for less money, because they’re just not that important in the scheme of things.