Jackson’s ‘King Kong’ Is A Massive, Exciting

Follow-Up To The Director’s Previous Trilogy

Filmmaker Peter Jackson is a man of great passions. His dedication to bringing J.R.R. Tolkien’s beloved fantasy novels to life in his faithful film renditions of The Lord of the Rings trilogy has been well noted and was rightfully rewarded with Oscar wins for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay (not to mention 17 total wins for the whole trilogy).

Now his zeal has been unleashed on King Kong, a remake of the seminal 1933 film that inspired him, back when he first saw it as a young boy, to make films in the first place.

Now playing and still sitting strongly within the top five at the box office (having earned more than $464 million by last weekend), King Kong is a massive movie (it clocks in at just over three hours) full of sweeping emotion, stunning visual scope, and eye-popping special effects, not the least of which is Kong himself, who is spectacularly realized with the help of actor Andy Serkis, who also came to Jackson’s aid as the live-action template for Gollum of The Lord of the Rings.

Here Serkis is invaluable as he helps imbue the beast with empathy but also is careful to never completely humanize him either. In fact, a great deal of effort has gone into making Kong and his actions much more true to the type of gorilla behavior to which many of us have grown accustomed through National Geographic specials and the like.

King Kong, which Jackson sets in the 1933 world of the original film, opens with an incredibly realistic and well-imagined sequence that transports us to Depression-era New York. Struggling vaudeville actress Ann Darrow (a winning Naomi Watts) is enticed to join the crew of maverick director Carl Denham (Jack Black), who is shooting a new adventure film. Denham also brings along playwright-screenwriter Jack Driscoll (an appealing Adrien Brody), who is reluctant to join the scheming director as he sets sail on a steamer in search of a mysterious place called Skull Island.

Once there, Denham hopes to capture the most incredible footage ever seen. But he gets more than he bargained for when the ship reaches its destination and finds creatures long thought extinct, and other dangerous beasts (including our title character) never known to have existed.

Though King Kong is nearly 15 minutes shorter than Jackson’s last film, The Return of the King, it shares that film’s weakness of having to carry the burden of the director’s overindulgence. Jackson’s passion can be a great asset in his abilities as a master storyteller (sometimes his joy or enthusiasm for a project almost tangibly seeps off the screen and into moviegoers’ sensibilities), but it also can hinder him in his ability to know when to cut.

Whereas The Return of the King was hurt by a very drawn-out ending, King Kong is slowed somewhat by an incredibly protracted middle, specifically the escapades on Skull Island. Unquestionably, there are some outright “gee whiz” moments; sequences in which you can’t believe your eyes and are amazed at the level of realism these artists bring to the fantastic (forget lions and tigers and bears… we’ve got dinosaurs, giant bats, and creepy crawly giant bugs).

But Jackson doesn’t know when to quit, and the trials and tribulations of our heroes on Skull Island becomes a type of harrowing endurance test in which we’re afraid to see what new menace lurks behind the next tree branch. Skull Island will definitely take your breath away… but not always in the best sense.

That said, Jackson is so assured in his storytelling, one would have to be a complete Scrooge to completely look down their nose at this polished, reverent remake of a cinema classic. In fact, as an interesting side note, the American Film Institute (AFI), which included the 1933 film among the top 100 films of all time, now ranks Jackson’s retelling as one of the top 10 films of this year. You can ultimately be the judge of that, but without doubt King Kong is an exciting follow-up for Jackson and certainly displays much of his boundless enthusiasm for film.

King Kong is rated PG-13 for frightening adventure violence, scary moments and some disturbing images. It’s certainly not for the faint of heart.