King Kong

"King Kong" is a feast for the eyes but a bit cheesy for the ears. Peter Jackson and his magicians at Weta manage to shock and awe with the special effects. This time, however, lacking a literary work such as "Lord of the Rings" upon which to build a script, the dialog was surprisingly....well, lame. I want to think that Jackson was simply paying homage to a movie that he has worshipped since birth by keeping the script clean, simple, and naive. I refuse to think anything less of the man who brought us Gollum.

Doubling the length of time of the original, we have plenty of time to get to know the main characters as well as see amazing action. Naomi Watts plays Ann Darrow, a vaudeville performer struggling to survive the Great Depression. Much to her seemingly good fortune, she meets up with Carl Denham (Jack Black), a movie director struggling to keep his job by making a movie on an uncharted island. Working from a script being written by Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody), Denham takes Ann and his crew to the island aboard a rusty charter boat. The first hour alone provides for that arrangement. We have yet to make it to the island.

But fear not, because as soon as the ship arrives at Skull Island, an array of action begins. Between the point in time of taking on savage natives until they finally manage to capture a 25-foot gorilla, the crew is faced with multiple deaths from dinosaurs, giant bugs, and other unnamed menaces. They have remained on the island to rescue Darrow, who has been captured by Kong, who is eventually captured by Denham and crew.

We went to the 7:30pm show. I checked my watch to see what time it was when King Kong finally arrives in New York. It was 10:00pm.

From the time that Kong makes his debut on stage in New York City until his eventual death, there are probably five lines of dialog. Rather than telling the story in words, we simply witness the relationship that has developed between the beauty (Darrow) and the beast (Kong). Watts is impressive in displaying emotions with the gorilla when you consider that she was acting against a green screen. Kong himself is technologically outstanding, with each hair on his body looking real, and each emotion feeling real. There are a number of beautifully quiet scenes between the two that add a layer of depth that nicely round out the overall movie.

All in all, "King Kong" is not over-hyped, just don't expect significant depth with the conversations between characters. "Kong" proves that Peter Jackson is still King. I give it an A-.

"King Kong" is rated PG-13 with a running time of 185 minutes.