Rating of
3/4
A good tribute to the original 1933 version
The M.O.W. - wrote on 08/02/08
Filmmaker "Carl Denham" (Jack Black) wants to make a movie at the mythical "Skull Island", but the studio won't fund the project. So, with stolen movie equipment, "Denham" plans to make the film no matter what. However, his leading actress pulled out, and he must find another who will brave the journey.
Enter "Ann Darow" (Naomi Watts), an attractive, struggling stage actress/dancer who just lost a job. She agrees to go with "Denham," who tells her that they are going to Singapore. And they head to the docks, where studio officials and police show up to arrest the director.
On the ship, "Darrow" meets the tough crew, arrogant actor "Bruce Baxter" (Kyle Chandler) who is a gentleman to "Darrow", and playwright "Jack Driscoll" (Adrien Brody), whom "Darrow" is anxious to work with.
Eventually, the island, which is known as "Skull Island", is found and much of the ship's crew, "Denham" and his cast go ashore, where they find freaky looking natives and the largest man-made wall they've ever seen.
The natives, who look peaceful at first, then attack their visitors and take "Darrow" into custody. They then offer the blond beauty to their god -- a 25 foot tall silverback gorilla (Andy Serkis, whose movements were recorded for reference to animate the CGI gorilla), who becomes smitten with the actress.
As "Darrow" warms up to the giant gorilla, a rescue party/film crew goes into the dense jungle where enormous animals, including dinosaurs, live. Many of the men are killed by the animals and the gorilla, but "Darrow" is saved. But "Denham," who wants to make money, wants to bring back the gorilla to New York City to make a buck.
And so, the gorilla is brought back to "The Big Apple" where a modified story of his capture is told as he is presented on a Broadway stage. However, the wild animal escapes when it discovers that for the stage show, "Darrow" was replaced by a lookalike (Julia Walshaw), and it eventually makes its way to the Empire State Building to make its famed climb to the top of the skyscraper.
The first thing you will notice while watching this film is that there are some incredible CGI special effects and incredible cinematography. I would strongly suggest that you find a widescreen edition on DVD because the full-screen just doesn't do the movie justice.
Not all of the CGI effects in the film, especially when the human cast is in the scene, and they are surrounded by CGI. You can easily tell that they are in front of a blue or green screen and added into the scene during post-production.
There are some good performances in this film. In my opinion, out of the entire main cast, Black's performance is one of the weaker performances. Sometimes his performance works, while at other times he just didn't appear to make much of an effort. Also, Brody was just wrong for the romantic leading male in this film. His performance was pretty good, but there are better leading men, who are a lot better looking, who could have worked much better in this role.
One huge thing that was a major problem in the movie is that it is over three-hours long. Because of the movie's length, many scenes are drawn-out and lags frequently. One thing that should have been cut down is the time the movie spends on the search for "Darrow" in "Kong's" jungle. I was was wishing for the movie to go forward to NYC and skip the capture of the gorilla.
One thing that fans of the 1933 "King Kong" will love is that there are references to that version throughout the film. Peter Jackson, who directed this remake, also used props from the 1933 version that he has personally collected over the years. One scene fans of the original 1933 version will love is that "Denham" films "Baxter" and "Darrow" acting out a scene from the original film word-for-word. There is even a direct reference to Fay Wray, the original "Darrow," Merian C. Cooper, who co-wrote the original "King Kong" and RKO Studios, which released the original 1933 movie.
Despite the flaws, this version of "King Kong" is really good. With good performances, amazing special effects, and way too many references to the original 1933 movie, is fun to watch. I personally wish it was at least 40 minutes shorter, or even 100 minutes, which is the approximate run time of the original film.
