King Kong

Review by Clint Morris

It’s big. It’s hairy. It’s able to grope you in its palm. That’s right folks, director Peter Jackson’s 12-year-journey to bring the monstrous monkey King Kong back to the big screen has finally come to fruition.

The result? It’s big. And so is the movie.

Oh - but so is the running time...

Not satisfied to be simply an ephemeral memory, this latest redo of the 1933 classic is longer than the lens the paparazzi use to get snaps of a topless Cameron Diaz sunbathing.

It seems that Jackson (The Lord of the Rings trilogy) has enrolled in the Kevin Costner School of Filmmaking - the longer your film runs, the better it is. In the case of King Kong that’s definitely not the case.

This is one movie that doesn’t need to be a three hour film - it’s not a bio about someone who led an extraordinary life, it’s not a bulky piece of literature that’s hard to compress, it’s not an epic. That’s right - it’s not an epic.

The original King Kong was an entertaining B-movie squeezed into a workable 100 minutes. Why, oh why, did Jackson think that the remake needed to be twice as long then? It most certainly doesn’t. For all intents and purposes, it tells exactly the same story, just more indolently, and the first 75 minutes or so? As uninteresting as watching paint dry.

Thankfully, Jackson’s movie kicks in just after the halfway mark, when the big monkey finally makes an appearance. It then proceeds to rework the best moments from Jurassic Park: The Lost World - nothing amazing, but still commendable - before culminating in a slightly-touching (Watts and the Ape do have chemistry) but fairly drawn-out finale.

If you’ve seen the original, you know the story. A film crew happens across a 25-foot ape on a remote island. The lead actress (Naomi Watts) develops a bond with the big softie. The film's producer (Jack Black) decides this huge ape will be the saving grace of his career and knocks it out. They bring it back to New York. It snaps back into action, goes on a rampage, and heads for the Empire State Building.

King Kong may be a bit of a disappointment, but that doesn’t mean it’s not entertaining. The effects are great, and the actors are all good - but its length really hurt it. Jackson has found it easy enough to shred more than a few pounds from his own shell, why couldn't he apply the same technique to his film?

King Kong isn’t the blow-em-away blockbuster you were hoping for, but it will entertain.

3.5 out of 5

King Kong
Australian release: Wednesday the 14th of December, 2005.
Cast: Naomi Watts, Jack Black, Adrien Brody, Andy Serkis, Jamie Bell, Kyle Chandler, Colin Hanks.
Director: Peter Jackson.
Website: Click here.

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