King Kong (2005) Review

King Kong (2005), Peter Jackson
3/5
At over 3 hours long this epic fantasy adventure film remakes not only a classic film, but the style of the golden era of Hollywood cinema. Peter Jackson is one of many film makers of his generation, including  Spielberg, Carpenter, Scorsese etc that pays homage and remakes classic Hollywood films. At once highly melodramatic, (which is the style) with a nonsensical thin plot, it is full of long action sequences with CGI that aren't that impressive.

The exception to this, is of course the effects of Kong himself, which are excellent, perhaps due to the impressive digital effect techniques developed for Rings (2001-2003) and the body performance by Andy Serkis.

 

The performances are good, with what they had to work with, following the genre style, they lack much character development, although thankfully there is not that much exposition, and Jackson handles the conveying of emotion and communication beautifully through imagery, as film making should be, and that's what makes him a great director.

The film is overly long and the plot is highly unrealistic of course, but if you can get past the major illogical plot holes and fantastical elements, it is quite enjoyable. Naomi Watts gives a great performance, lifting her character up from what may have been purely the hysterical woman who screams, instead giving a gritty emotional, and funny performance that feels real. Although, of course she does scream a lot. Naomi Watts and Adrien Brody are the stand out performances, and Jack Black gives an average performance, while managing to tone down his over-the-top psychotic Jack Nicholson-esque character-type and has some nuance and subtly to his character. Jackson manages to capture both the Hollywood caricature nature of the characters while at the same time giving them some emotional depth and making them relatable.

Overall, a fun adventure film, that has great visuals and cinematography  mixed good and bad CGI effects, good performances, but is far too long, with scene following scene of running through the jungle. At points it becomes almost horror genre-like as Anna (Naomi Watts) runs from one monster into another. Anna (Watts) manages to go through a lot of trauma and running around without injury or even getting dirt on her dress for a long time. It becomes a film that feels like the tag line should be "People travel to an island and encounter lots of monsters".