"'King' Sized Entertainment"
by Scott Mantz

"King Kong"
Naomi Watts, Adrien Brody, Jack Black
Directed by Peter Jackson

Planet of the Ape! Naomi Watts meets her big blind date in "King Kong"

When it comes to the ultimate cinematic experience, “King Kong” is about as good as it gets.  Directed, produced and co-written by three-time Academy Award-winner Peter Jackson, whose history-making “Lord of the Rings” trilogy grossed a mind-boggling $3 billion worldwide, this rip-roaring, rousing $207 million-budgeted remake of the 1933 classic is easily the most fun you’ll have at the movies this holiday season.

But with a running time of 3 hours and 8 minutes, it’s also the most time you’ll spend at the movies this year.  And it sure doesn’t need to be, which is why the film falls short of being a masterpiece.  Sure, you’ll marvel at the incredible special effects, you’ll sit on the edge of your seat during the spectacular action scenes, and you’ll be moved to tears by the love story’s touching beauty.  But it takes too long for all that to happen, since the first hour is padded down with noticeable contrivances and unnecessary subplots.

Then again, we are talking about Peter Jackson, whose movies tend to run a little on the long side – each of his “Lord of the Rings” installments clocked in at more than 3 hours as well.  But it may be a moot point anyway, since “Kong” gets better as it goes along, and let’s face it – by the time you get to the breathtaking climax, where the “Eighth Wonder of the World” fends off biplanes from the top of the Empire State Building, you won’t be thinking about how slow the first hour was.

Virtually ignoring the very entertaining (and unfairly underrated) contemporary update from 1976 produced by Dino De Laurentis, Jackson’s “Kong” greatly expands upon the 1933 original co-directed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack.  During the Great Depression, filmmaker Carl Denham (Jack Black) embarks upon a voyage to a mysterious island with actress Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) and screenwriter Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody) with hopes of making the greatest movie of all time.

But they get more than they bargained for when they reach Skull Island – the uncharted, prehistoric home of Kong, a 25-foot ape who’s both feared and worshiped by the island’s vicious natives.  They capture Darrow and sacrifice her to Kong, who takes a liking to her and protects her from constant peril.  But by the time Driscoll makes the dangerous trek across the island to save Darrow, she isn’t so sure she wants to be saved.  It all builds to an incredible climax in New York City, where Beauty is all the lonely Beast has to save his soul.

After winning Best Picture, Best Director and the rest of the 9 Academy Awards for which it was nominated, one would have expected the final installment of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, 2003’s “The Return of the King,” to be a tough act to follow.  But Jackson follows it and then some with an incredible cinematic spectacle that delivers on all fronts.  Even the most jaded moviegoers will have a hard time resisting the scope of the epic production, especially when Kong single-handedly fights off three Tyrannosaurus rex, and of course, when Kong goes berserk through the streets of 1930’s New York.

Jackson quite literally puts moviegoers in Kong’s hands, but there are times when his directorial style overstates the obvious with distorted images, excessive zooms and intrusive, swelling music.  He also could have exercised some restraint, as some of the action scenes run a little too long and push the boundaries of credibility (even for a movie like this).  In one particular scene, Denham and Driscoll escape through a narrow canyon in an effort to outrun a Brontosaurus stampede, yet miraculously, they never get stepped on.  I mean, c’mon!

At least Jackson doesn’t let the special effects get in the way of telling a powerful story, and he further develops the unconditional love between Ann Darrow and Kong.  In the 1933 original, Darrow was nothing more than a screaming damsel-in-distress, while Driscoll was a corny alpha-male sailor who came to her rescue.  The 1976 update developed a more sympathetic relationship between Beauty and the Beast, but Jackson’s remake goes much further by depicting a remarkably effective dynamic between Kong, Darrow and Driscoll.

That the love triangle works as well as it does is a testament to Naomi Watts, who gives a physically grueling performance that runs a gamut of emotions (especially during a heart-tugging, tender moment with Kong in Central Park).  Oscar-winner Adrien Brody (“The Pianist”) also puts in a strong turn as the screenwriter who rises to the occasion, while Jack Black is pitch-perfect as Carl Denham, the filmmaking opportunist who cashes in on Kong with horrifying results.  And of course, big kudos to Andy Serkis, whose motion-capture work as Gollum in “The Lord of the Rings” laid the groundwork for his incredible “performance” here as Kong.

Not all of Jackson’s expansion works, particularly during the movie’s slow-moving first hour.  One particular subplot featuring Jamie Bell (“Billy Elliot”) as a young crewmember who has to prove himself seems totally unnecessary, since it doesn’t really pay off later in the story.  But this is a minor quibble in the grand scheme of the film, which tops both the groundbreaking movie magic of “Jurassic Park” and the epic love story of “Titanic.”  What’s truly amazing is that if Jackson can pull this off so soon after “The Lord of the Rings,” then I can’t wait to see what he does next.

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