The original "King Kong" from 1933 is considered a masterpiece, one of the greatest American films of all-time. It's hokey by today's standards, but it's still a great movie. In 1976, mega-producer Dino De Laurentiis released a remake. It was directed by John Guillermin ("Shaft in Africa," "The Towering Inferno") and written by Lorenzo Semple Jr. (a writer on the "Batman" TV series of the late 60s, and he helped write "Papillon," "The Parallax View," "Three Days of the Condor," and the extremely campy 1980 film, "Flash Gordon"). That version of "King Kong" is awful. It's set in modern times (well, it was modern in 1976), and there were major changes to the story in order to update it for audiences of the day. I would suggest you avoid the movie at all costs, it's horrible. Almost 30 years later, a second "King Kong" remake has been released, and it wisely remains faithful to the original. It helps that the director is Peter Jackson, who is obsessed with the original "King Kong." It's been a lifelong dream of his to bring a new version of "King Kong" to the big screen, and I'm happy to say that his remake is pretty much a success, though his version takes almost twice as long to tell the story.
At over three hours, "King Kong" is a long movie, probably TOO long. The movie can be separated into three distinct parts: Before Skull Island, Skull Island, and New York City. The stuff before Skull Island is mostly setup; lotsa dialogue, setting up characters, and all that stuff. It's way too long, and I'd say that as much as 20 minutes could have been cut out before they even get to Skull Island. It's not that I want non-stop action, I'm not like that. "Magnolia" is a three-hour movie that consists mostly of people talking, and I wouldn't cut a minute out of that movie. But with "King Kong," a lot of the stuff before Skull Island is unnecessary. As for the scenes on Skull Island, I'd say a good ten minutes could have been cut. The action is great, but it gets redundant at times, even tedious. The scenes in New York City are the ones I'd leave perfectly intact, but as a whole, the movie should have been about a half hour shorter.
Despite my belief that Peter Jackson's version of "King Kong" is too long, I really like the movie. Yeah, it drags at times, and that's a problem, but the scenes in New York City almost make up for the slow parts of the film. As for the end, well, let's just say that in the theater I saw it in, just about every girl cried. One girl was crying uncontrollably. It was kinda awkward actually.
It's very obvious that Peter Jackson loves the original film. Throughout the movie, he pays homage to it with some of the costume choices, using some of the same dialogue verbatim, and making reference to Fay Wray and Merian C. Cooper (the star and director of the original film). That's only some of it, though, there are plenty of other things to look for if you're a fan of the 1933 film.
The visual effects in the film are very good, but far from perfect. The modeling IS close to perfect, though. When you see a close-up of Kong's face, he doesn't look computer-generated. The modeling is very life-like. The animation, however, is where the flaws are more apparent. When Kong is destroying cars, or when the actors are running from the dinosaurs, that's when it's most obvious that you're not looking at the real thing. I know I might get laughed at for saying this, but I think the visual effects were more convincing in the recent remake of "Mighty Joe Young."
To a certain extent, the believability of Kong, as well as much of the success of the film, hinges on the performance of Naomi Watts ("I Heart Huckabees," "21 Grams," "The Ring," "Mulholland Dr."), who plays the Beauty to Kong's Beast. As it turns out, Watts is more than capable of holding her own, and she delivers an awesome performance as "Ann Darrow." Although this kind of movie probably won't get her Oscar recognition, she does deserve a nomination. Jack Black ("The School of Rock," "Orange County," "Shallow Hal," "High Fidelity") is also in the movie, and I initially thought he was miscast, but after seeing it, I gotta say that he was an inspired choice. I liked him in the role, even though he played a despicable character. Adrien Brody ("The Village," "The Pianist," "Summer of Sam," "The Thin Red Line") plays "Jack Driscoll," and instead of being the brash and sexist sailor (or whatever kind of person works on a ship) from the 1933 film, he's a sensitive writer. I'm not sure why the change was made, and I'm not sure I like it. I like the original character a lot more than the sappy writer, but whatever. Adrien Brody is a really good actor, and he's good in the role, but I think I would have preferred seeing the brash and sexist sailor. Andy Serkis (he was "Gollum" in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy) has two roles in the film; as Kong (he handled the motion capture stuff) and as "Lumpy." That's right, "Lumpy." He's the ship's cook.
Like with the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, "King Kong" was directed by Peter Jackson and written by Jackson, his wife Fran Walsh & Philippa Boyens. Jackson did a really good directing job, but I think he should have made it shorter. LIke I said earlier, about a half an hour could have been edited out without losing a whole lot, and the movie would have been more fast-paced. Of course, a lot of this could have been taken care of in the scripting stage if the writers didn't throw in so much. There are about three or four subplots I can think of that could have been eliminated without sacrificing the quality of the film.
Peter Jackson poured a lotta love into "King Kong," but somewhere along the way, he got a little self-indulgent and threw too much in there. I really like the movie, but I would have liked it more if it was shorter, if he'd cut out all the unnecessary stuff that detracts from the main story. I hate to say it, but even though I like the remake of "King Kong," the film's unnecessary length is a significant drawback, and I probably like Disney's remake of "Mighty Joe Young" a little more.
Scale of 1-10: 8