King Kong

At exactly three hours and seven minutes, and worth two-hundred million dollars, "King Kong" is an honor to the original. Jackson dramatizes the shift in attitudes of the 1933 and 1973 versions by digging deeper into his characters, yet at the same time retaining the plot, settings, and spirit of the original. A combination through all popular movie genres, it passes from drama, comedy, romance, horror, adventure, science-fiction fantasy, and even to a doomed love story. This version of King Kong really focuses more on the tender love story between a melancholy girl and her misunderstood fifty-foot ape.

The main character is the under-appreciated and starving, theatre actress Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts), whose dream is to be in a play by the talented and ineffectual playwright Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody). The man who makes something close to this happen is the adventurous filmmaker Carl Denham (Jack Black), whose deceptions and incompetence have left his producers so cold that they are threatening to shut down his next project. Other characters include: the grizzled captain of the ship (Thomas Kretschmann), the African-American first mate Hayes (Evan Parke), a castaway teenage boy Jimmy (Jaime Bell), and the dashing, egocentric leading man Bruce Baxter (Kyle Chandler).

The movie begins with shots of zoo animals, soup kitchens, and welfare lines in the Depression-era New York City, and then finally travels to the half-empty vaudeville theatre, where Ann is performing for a handful of spectators. When the theatre closes, she makes a last attempt to get an audition for a part in a new play by Driscoll. To her dismay, the producer brushes her off after already giving another girl the part, suggesting she try her luck at a burlesque show, which is where Denham finds her. Denham is desperate, having just stolen his footage from angry producers and lost his lead actress. Using nothing but his considerable powers of manipulation and a little fib of making a movie in Singapore, offers her the job of lead actress and a ship voyage. She seems a little leery at first, but becomes ecstatic once learning that Driscoll is the screenplay writer, and immediately accepts his offer.

In the mean time, the passengers experience shipboard adventure and romance, until they approach the fog-covered Skull Island and the curiously huge wall surrounding it. After boarding off the ship onto the island, they encounter the nightmarish Skull Island natives: witches, zombies, and voodoo children rolled into one. After Ann is abducted and offered to Kong as a human sacrifice, Driscoll convinces the crew to travel deep into the jungle to rescue her; where they experience a series of life-threatening and dangerous run-ins with stampeding dinosaurs, bloodthirsty T-Rex's, and monster insects. Meanwhile, Ann discovers that her captor, though incredibly fierce, is also quite fascinated by her, especially after she performs a little dance and juggling act right out of her New York stage routines; the giant ape seems to burst into laughter. Kong protects her from the vicious T-Rex's, and shares heartfelt moments such as cuddling near a waterfall under a beautiful sunset. Driscoll finally manages to steal Ann back from Kong, and once they reach the gate to the giant wall of Skull Island, with Kong close behind; Denham's dreams of glory and money get the better of him, convincing the ship captain and crew to help him capture Kong and take him back to America as "the Eighth Wonder of the World." With Denham's philosophy that everyone has a secret desire to encounter "some mystery in this world and we can all have a piece of it for the price of an admission ticket," he casts Kong and Bruce Baxter in a Broadway show-a spectacularly tasteless representation of "native" cultures, with ooga-booga music and cocoanut bras-to depict his "journey" to Skull Island. But Kong will not be used, and the mystery will not be tamed; he escapes in New York, chasing Driscoll while going on a rampage looking for Ann. Finally, they reunite and Kong calms down while he takes her for a romp through Central Park, complete with ice-skating. Eventually Kong is cornered to the Empire State Building by police, military, tanks, guns, etc., and has no other choice but to climb to the top of the world's tallest skyscraper-where there's no escaping. Watts' performance as the woman who is in the center of two love stories-between an actress and a writer, as well as between a beauty and a beast; almost leads to another story of unlikely lovers, The Beauty and the Beast, Protestant minister Frederick Buechner could have been talking about Ann when he wrote: "...Beauty does not love the Beast because he is beautiful, but makes him beautiful by loving him."

I thought this film was as big as Kong himself, and has a little bit of something that everyone can enjoy. Whether you've never seen the first two versions, or have seen both, you'll definitely appreciate Jackson's take on King Kong, not to mention the advancement in special effects, Jurassic Park-like creatures, Titanic love scenes, and the enchanting scenic island.