[Vision2020] King Kong Review

[Chasuk]

This isn't Peter Jackson's best film, nor is it his worst (which of
his films qualify as "best" and "worst" I'll leave for others to
argue).

When you watch this movie, pretend that is a Steven Spielberg for
adults.  By this, I mean Steven Spielberg with no maudlin
sentimentality, no blue-aura imbuing anything, no precociously cute
kids.  Then notch the violence up several levels.  I'm not talking
about Quentin Tarantino violence, but neither is it cartoon violence. 
It is realistic, frequent, and sometimes (although this is arguable)
gratuitous.  If you don't like creepy-crawlies, stay away from this
movie, for they are legion.

King Kong is essentially a love story.  Beauty conquers the beast.  It
doesn't have a happy ending.  It made me weep.  King Kong emotes.  His
range of facial expression, and the poignancy of his body language, is
amazing.  Naomi Watts emotes pretty wonderfully as the heroine, and
Jack Black was perfectly cast as the cad.  In fact, Black may have
been too perfectly cast  There wasn't a moment in the film in which I
could sympathize with him.

This movie is over three hours long.  Two and a half hours of it were
action adventure and world-building.  We get to see tribal warriors so
spooky that Tarzan would have abandoned the jungle, except that this
jungle is on an uncharted island, so he would have had to swim.  We
see dinosaurs wrought in predictably-amazing CGI.  Two hours into the
film, all of this eye-candy was beginning to leave me a little bored. 
Then we meet King Kong, and the beauty and the beast storyline starts
to unfold, and my interest is restored.

Four stars out of five, for those who appreciate such reckoning.  I'm
hoping that this picture bankrolls The Hobbit, which is the Peter
Jackson epic that I really want to see.  Still, I rate it well worth
seeing.