Look out! He's got a knife!

Is there any hope for Peter Jackson?

Peter Jackson started off by making a very funny alien-invasion gore comedy (91 minutes). He then made a sporadically funny gross-out Muppets parody (94 minutes). His third film was an hilarious zombie comedy (97 minutes). His fourth film, his best to date, was a serious and unconventional character drama based on a true story (108 minutes).

Jackson's fifth film, a Ghostbusters rip-off, originally ran 110 minutes and was expanded to a "director's cut" of 122 minutes. This is where the rot began to set in. Neither as serious as his previous film nor as funny as the first three, it really didn't need to be 12 minutes longer.

Jackson's next project was to be epic in scope, adapting a famous novel that the greatest fantasy writer of the 20th Century has described as "Epic Pooh". Jackson made this in three parts, each of which was later expanded: 178 minutes became 208, 179 minutes became 223, and 200 minutes became 252. When it was finally assembled into one long movie it became clear that Jackson had gone 203 minutes beyond Andy Warhol's Empire and made the longest, most boring movie of all time.

When Jackson's next movie came in at a mere 188 minutes (later expanded to 201) it might have seemed like a bit of an advancement for him, but in truth he was more boring than ever; this movie, a tall story about a big monkey, was a remake that added 97 minutes to the running time without ever adding a single significant element to the story.

This filmmaker does not just need an editor. He needs to be kept away from movie sets until he regains his senses. Reportedly he is writing & directing a movie based on the autobiography of a 60 year old punk rock singer. The way things are going, we can expect the movie to be told in real time.

Is there life in the old dog yet? Will Peter Jackson ever again make a movie that is not at least twice as long as it need to be? My guess is "No," but I live in hope!

Posted by pearce at August 8, 2007 4:49 PM