Geoff's Movie Reviews

Peter Jackson's King Kong is a 'big' movie, in every sense of the word.

I'll start with the ape. The ape is pretty big. Okay, done.

Next: the special effects. I read one critic who said that the advancement in special effects used in King Kong is the biggest step forward in special effects since the dinosaurs of the original Jurassic Park. The big ape himself really is that incredible. Notably, the computer-generated Kong is very first entirely-CG 'main character' of earthly origins created for any film (I say "of earthly origins" so as to exclude aliens, robots, or other such things that are generally easier to create in CG because they have no real world basis for us to compare them to). Kong comes across onscreen as very real, and he himself deserves a solid five stars.

Also big is the running time. Like each of Jackson's Lord of the Rings instalments, King Kong clocks in at over three hours, but unlike the Lord of the Rings movies, I think shorter might've been better. The film doesn't really drag anywhere, but there seemed to be a few places where the pace could've been tightened up a bit.

Finally, the film is kind of big on melodrama. I guess Peter Jackson figured that such a big film really needed some Big Acting, and Naomi Watts, Jack Black, and others (including Andy Serkis's human role) deliver. It's not a bad thing, necessarily, but I think I would've preferred the characters to be a little more grounded in reality. I know that's a strange thing to say regarding a movie about a giant monkey, but I think the sheer spectacle of it all might've been more powerful if it was done in a more realistic manner.

That's a small complaint in what is -- as I've been saying -- a very big movie. Peter Jackson should be praised for creating a very good movie that, in another director's hands, could've been a very big disaster.