Movie Review - KING KONG

King Kong (2005)
Director: Peter Jackson
Starring: Naomi Watts, Jack Black, Adrien Brody, Thomas Kretschmann, Colin Hanks, Andy Serkis
IMDB: 7.8

Had the rare opportunity to see a film in theaters last weekend, and I had my sights locked on seeing Kong. Then my wife starts talking about Brokeback Mountain. I laughed and said " Sure, we can see Brokeback.....and monkey's might fly outta my butt!" Then she got mad cause she was serious. She wanted to see a love story. I said, "Gods woman, King Kong is one of the greatest love stories ever written!" She didn't believe me. She'd never see the original 1933 Kong or the 1976 remake (Which I am more familiar with). I somehow convinced her and off we were to see Peter Jackson's next masterpiece.

This isn't a perfect film, like his Lord of the Rings were. There are some holes, some gliches, some head-scratches, and maybe some Z's from people who can't sit through 3 hours. But for the most part, King Kong succeeds where it should. It's a larger then life, edge of your seat thrill ride, that brings back the wonder of seeing things that have NEVER been done in movies before.

The film is written in three acts: The journey to Skull Island, The quest to save Ann from Kong, and Kong takes Manhatten. Act one is great filmmaking, a slow building pot-boiler of a mystery. Act two is balls to the walls insanity, interspaced with the "getting to know your Kong" moments. And Act Three is the rightous moral and futile battle for life and love. Yeah, it's too long. But there's not a lot I would cut out, and there's a few scenes I wanted to see that weren't there. This film could have easily been sliced into halves like Kill Bill, and would have probably rocked even more.

The cast is good. Naomi Watts steals the show, showing great range and a knack for physical comedy. Adrien Brody also makes the most of playing second fiddle to the big gorilla. I'm not sold on Jack Black here. I love Black, but I can't seperate him from his Tenacious D persona. He dosn't seem to inhabit this role, and some moments are a kinda bad. And Peter Jackson should give Andy Serkis his first-born, cause Serkis is the MVP of his films. Serkis was suited up and wired for digitizing, then performed the role of Kong, a la the same thing they did for Gollum in LOtR. It's nothing short of astonishing.

I remember the first time I saw Jurassic Park, and how that was a watershed moment in film. This film may not be as important to the future of film as JP was, but my reaction of, "Holy Shit! I can't believe what I'm seeing!" was about the same. Peter Jackson is the next Steven Spielberg. Write it down.

The Sneaky Cheetah's Grade: A