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By Barbara Vancheri, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
In the end, Peter Jackson has us in the palm of his hand as surely as the Beast cradles the Beauty.
It's taken the "Lord of the Rings" director 35 years to fulfill his boyhood dream of remaking "King Kong," and he has created a computer-generated creature who is ferocious, furious, playful, protective, resigned, sad ... and as believable as they come. Although part of your brain knows Kong isn't really there, at least not as a silverback gorilla standing 25 feet tall and weighing 8,000 pounds, the other part never doubts his existence.
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Rating:PG-13 for frightening adventure violence and some disturbing images."King Kong" takes every element of the 1933 story -- its Depression-era setting, its sea voyage into uncharted territory, exploration of a lost world and return to a glittering Manhattan -- and goes deeper and wider, thus accounting for the three-hour running time.
The S.S. Venture doesn't just steam through the sinister, soupy fog to Skull Island, it bumps up against the rocks like the Titanic scraping against the icebergs (as the orchestra's strings ratchet up the tension). The ship's lights have been dimmed, giving the passage a ghostly air, and a map with a mysterious blot of ink has just blown into the sea.
And the island natives aren't just men and women with war paint, ominous drums and torches, but feral, frightening creatures with long, scraggly hair hanging over their clouded eyes and the ability to stealthily slip aboard the Venture by swinging and pole-vaulting like practiced circus performers. They live amid skulls, skeletons, mummified bodies and a world where women are regularly sent by a sophisticated, slow-motion slingshot into Kong's embrace.
Jackson and fellow writers Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens provide a slight, welcome surprise near the end but generally stay true to the original and pay homage to it, too. Watts wears a cloche hat in honor of Fay Wray, who famously played the damsel in distress, and a line is tossed off about Fay making a picture for RKO, which was the studio that released "King Kong" 72 years ago.
The bones of the story involve an adventure-loving filmmaker named Carl Denham (Jack Black) who hires a penniless vaudevillian named Ann Darrow (Watts) to star in his next film, being shot on a secret, remote island. This time around, the movie is being written by playwright Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody), who is conned to stick around for the journey.
Also along for the ride: a vainglorious B-movie actor (Kyle Chandler) as well as Denham's straight-arrow assistant (Colin Hanks), the Venture's captain (Thomas Kretschmann), a onetime stowaway (Jamie Bell) and his protector (Evan Parke) and Lumpy the Cook (Andy Serkis, who also "plays" Kong).
When the Venture finally arrives at Skull Island, the filmmakers and sailors find a prehistoric world where dinosaurs still roam, where Kong reigns supreme, and where the natives cower in fear of the great ape, which they try to placate with female sacrifices. As with all good monster movies, we hear the beast crashing his way through the trees before we see him.
It takes about 70 minutes for that build-up, and once the movie hits Skull Island, Jackson and company throw everything at us, from thundering dinosaurs tripping over each other as they run or engage Kong in battle to enormous flying bugs, spiders the size of Hummers and what appear to be slimy lampreys with layers of teeth and a mouth that can stretch over a man's head and vacuum him up. (All of these things make the movie too intense for most children under 9 or 10.)
If "Jurassic Park" had never existed, this would be jaw-dropping, but "Jurassic Park" did, which somewhat diminishes the effect.
When the action shifts to Manhattan, Kong makes his Broadway debut for the swells in black tie, and he heads to his appointment with destiny and one of the most famous lines of dialogue in movie history. The 84th most famous, in fact, according to the recent roster of quotes.
"King Kong" is light on dialogue and long on terrified or tearful looks by Watts, who does it well, even when running around the jungle barefoot while clad in a silky slip. Brody is an unlikely hero but, as Chandler's actor tells him, in the real world the hero is more likely to have bad teeth, a bald spot and beer gut. The Oscar winner for "The Pianist" has none of those things, just eyes as soulful as Kong's.
Besides, it's Kong's picture -- even if he has to share it. Beauty may have killed the Beast, but Jackson allows him to sit on top of the world once more. And roar.
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