King Kong - Palm Beach Post movie review

'King Kong' emits a mighty roar

By HAP ERSTEIN
Palm Beach Post

Having made one of the most successful film series of all time with The Lord of the Rings trilogy, director Peter Jackson has certainly earned the right to try a personal project.

But for him, that means remaking 1933's King Kong, the movie that inspired him to become a filmmaker. And that means doing it his way, spending millions of dollars and using the most advanced technological wizardry to assure that this iconic beast-and-the-beauty tale will not be committed to celluloid again for a long time to come.

Universal Pictures

'King Kong'

The verdict: More complex characters and state-of-the-art technology help give Jackson the Kong of his, and our, dreams.

Director: Peter Jackson
Starring: Naomi Watts, Jack Black, Adrien Brody, Andy Serkis, Thomas Kretschmann
Run time: 187 minutes
Release date: Dec. 14, 2005
Rating: PG-13 for frightening adventure violence and some disturbing images.
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On the set
See finished frames and the work in progress in this "King Kong" slideshow.

On the web
Official movie site
View the trailer
Trailers require Quicktime

Seat belt use should be mandatory for all showings of Jackson's King Kong, the most jolt-riddled movie ride in memory. In expanding the film to a three-hour-plus journey — more than twice the length of the original version — Jackson not only ups the perils on Skull Island, but deepens the characters, hooking us into caring about struggling vaudeville entertainer Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) before she ever attracts the attention of a certain oversized ape.

Jackson, along with his Lord of the Rings co-writers Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, has turned King Kong into a saga of show business. You see, the Depression has shuttered the theater where Darrow does a comic juggling act, making her susceptible to the pressures put on her by megalomaniacal director-producer Carl Denham (Jack Black, doing a dandy Orson Welles imitation) to star in his new movie.

No, he does not happen to mention it will be shot in the South Pacific on an island so remote it is overrun with dinosaurs and an ape with an eye for the ladies. And when playwright Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody) fails to deliver a completed screenplay before Denham has to cast off his ship, one step ahead of the authorities, he tricks the writer into joining the film crew on location, finding him an animal cage in steerage in which to complete the script at sea.

So it is a good hour-and-a-quarter before we get a glimpse at Kong, who proves to be not only "the eighth wonder of the world," but a marvel of state-of-the-art, computer-assisted animation. The role is played by Andy Serkis with a similar simulation program that he used to bring Lord of the Rings' Gollum to life.

Far more than any previous Kong — yes, we might as well mention and then quickly dismiss the 1976 Charles Grodin-Jessica Lange version — this ape conveys a wide range of feelings with his eyes and nostrils. Serkis' performance, while also very physical, is largely responsible for the emotional tug of this movie.

But first, Jackson wants to terrify us with the many inhabitants of Skull Island. The place is like Indiana Jones' worst nightmare: If you can survive the wizened, old natives and their deadly accurate spear-throwing, then there is the herd of carnivorous, stampeding dinosaurs, the swarm of giant bats and, most unnerving of all, an infestation of giant spiders, centipedes and assorted creepy-crawly bugs. After all this, heading back to New York City is a relief.

That, of course, is where the movie's third act takes us, with the shackled Kong destined to play a prominent role in a Broadway-musical extravaganza built around the story of his capture. But he bolts during the white-tie opening-night performance, for he has a date with destiny and a squadron of biplanes at the top of the Empire State Building.

Jackson's Manhattan geography may be a little faulty, but the re-creation of old-time New York by production designer Grant Major and the digital artists is breathtaking.

The computer takes precedence over the actors, but still Watts gets points for the perils she endures, the screams she emits and the fearless attitude she radiates as the most can-do Ann Darrow ever. Black flashes some extremely believable crazed looks, while Brody stretches credibility the most as an action hero and a romantic leading man.

As three-hour movies go, King Kong seems to move along more briskly than the three Lord of the Rings flicks. So expect this to be a blockbuster hit that will dominate the box office for months to come.

And whatever will Jackson do to follow up Kong?

Whatever he wants.