King Kong (* * * *)

King Kong was a really great movie. I gave King Kong 4 stars because it's easily "better than average", the story is great, acting is excellent and I just have to say that Peter Jackson is a genius. Everyone knows that because Lord of The Rings is one of my favorite movie franchises I am a Peter Jackson fan. Actually that is one of the main reasons I wanted to see King Kong. I have faith in him and he doesn't disappoint here either. However there were some things I didn't like about King Kong, but the good far outweighs the bad. As always, I will spoil the movie for anyone who doesn't know the story. Read with caution.

The first thing I noticed and really enjoyed about King Kong was the way it is filmed really brings it to life. The movie takes place in the 1930's and there is a real "old" feel to it. The clothing and the way the actors look, the sets and the overall style of the film is excellent. You do feel like you took a time machine and went back in time to that period in America. I attribute that to Peter Jackson and his ability to completely create the world in which the story takes place.

The story is told very well, there aren't a lot of questions that need answering and really the plot isn't that deep. I do think that there are some deeper messages within the simple story, but at face value the film is very easy to follow.

The film begins in 1933 New York City, Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) is a struggling actress looking for work in the depression era. She is discovered by Carl Denham (Jack Black) who is an ambitious film maker looking to make a big epic film. They, along with their crew, escape New York on a boat and travel to Skull Island, here they encounter King Kong, the larger than life ape. Ann is offered as a sacrifice by the island natives in order to make Kong happy. Kong takes a liking to Ann and begins to fall in love with her. The rest of the crew on the island are worried that Ann is in trouble and a extensive search party goes out to try and rescue her. Being the ambitious person that he is Carl Denham decides to capitalize on the situation and get as much footage as he can. Things get pretty crazy and Carl comes up with an even better idea, instead of putting Kong in his movie, he will capture him and return to New York with Kong as a circus act. As they return to New York, Kong decides he doesn't like his new surroundings and begins to tear the city apart looking for Ann. The movie ends with the tragic death of Kong and the destruction of much of the city.

As I mentioned before the story is very simple, but that isn't what makes King Kong a great story. The great thing about King Kong is the ability of the movie to make the audience sympathize with King Kong, a seemingly frightening creature. This movie is really all about the characters, it's about the good and bad in humanity. King Kong himself being the main character and one of the most complex, the ability to make an ape with these character qualities is at the heart of this film. With the characters of Carl, Ann and Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody) we see the diversity of who we are as people. This movie isn't even about the ape, it's about us as a people and as a community, how we treat each other and how we treat our world. King Kong has a deeper message than you might think.

The acting in King Kong is very good, I think that it was cast very well. A lot of the good acting isn't really due to good actors, it's due to good characters. But the actors that were chosen did do a good job. Although at first I was skeptical, I haven't really been an Adrien Brody fan and I was really worried Jack Black couldn't be serious enough. I was wrong, Jack Black is great as Carl Denham, he really plays the part well. He does a great job of making you love and hate him at the same time. Adrien Brody plays, I guess what you would call the hero, Jack Driscoll. He is not your typical hero and they even address that fact in the film, but he does a good job playing the role and his feelings are believable. Naomi Watts was good as Ann Darrow, but in all honesty she didn't have to do much except scream and look pretty. There are so many shots of her just staring off into the distance, something that actually bothered me about the film. Too many shots of her staring off into the distance. But she looked the part well, she was funny and pretty, I guess you see why Kong falls in love with her. One of the standout actors of the film is Colin Hanks (Son of Tom Hanks). I didn't even know he was in the movie at first, but he did a really good job playing Preston, Carl's assistant. There is also a small role played by Andy Serkis, the actor who portrayed Gollum in LOTR. Watch for it, because he is pretty funny, his death scene is a little disturbing though. Serkis also did the facial expressions and actions captured by the camera and changed by animators into Kong himself. As an animated, CGI character, Kong looks great. His face and eyes are so real, his movements will make you forget he isn't a real ape. It's pretty cool to watch and I recommend it on the big screen.

There are some problems with King Kong, it is too long (187 minutes). I don't usually have a problem with long films, in fact many of my favorite movies are way past the 2 hour mark. I do enjoy large, epic films. But King Kong just didn't need to be as long as it was. What I didn't enjoy was the insanely long dinosaur chase scene that happens on the island, it was just too much. There was a lot of time spent on the boat traveling to the island, I could have done without a lot of that. The pacing is good, I wouldn't say that I was bored, but there is definitely three distinct "acts" in the movie. Act I is the character building and story setup, Act II is on the island running from Kong, Act III is getting back to New York and the tragedy. Each Act is about an hour long and I really think the movie could have been a little over 2 hours and been just as good. I would have been happy with a theatrical (shorter) version and an extended DVD version.

The Bottom Line... Despite some problems like being too long, disgusting death scenes and Naomi Watts being a little annoying, King Kong is a great movie. I gave it 4 stars because of great acting, a good simple yet deep story, excellent sets, style, imagery, and most of all great characters. I am recommending this movie to everyone, except young kids. I really think most people will enjoy this movie, just get over the fact that it's long, take an evening and go enjoy it. King Kong is rated PG-13 and could have been borderline in justifying an R rating with the violence. This is why I don't recommend young kids go see it, the movie is scary and I think it could easily give kids nightmares, for adults it's not really bad, but there are some disturbing images. Unfortunately because it took so long for me to write my review, King Kong may be difficult to still see in theaters, but check it out if you can and let me know what you think about the movie. If you have already seen it, let me know what you thought.