King Kong

I again forgot to post about a movie I recently watched, and this time it was one I longed to see for a while: King Kong, Peter Jackson's remake of the 1933 original with the same title.

Well, after putting his wizardry and talent to the test with the über-epic Lord of the Rings trilogy, Jackson shows us with King Kong that he's no one-time-wonder director/auteur.

Jackson deluges his spectacle with some of the best visual effects ever seen, but he also infuses it with romanticism, character development and effective dialogue that as a whole display his adoration for the classic he humbly and proudly proceeded to remake, and improved on it the process, a feat that is hardly, if ever, accomplished by so-called remakes.

Nothing really changes from the original story to this one, apart from a "long lost" scene of humans fighting huge bugs in a pit (I won't say more for whoever hasn't yet seen the movie; suffice it to say that I hate bugs and I felt my stomach tighten during this scene), and I believe I won't spoil it for anyone by revealing that it's the story of an oversized ape that falls in love with a blonde girl who was sacrificed to him in order to please him, who then gets captured and brought back to New York to be put on display for the world to see and the movie producer to profit.

What Jackson is capable of doing in this movie is mostly making us buy into the whole romantic attachment between Ann and Kong, something I never thought would be possible considering that Kong is really just a bunch of ones and zeroes. Naturally, Naomi Watts does a great acting job, showing it is indeed possible to act against a green screen as if what we will see in the final version of the movie was there all along.

And let's not forget Andy Serkis, the actor behind The Lord of the Ring's magnificently rendered Gollum, who outdoes himself here as the monster ape who goes out of his way to save a creature that has the guts to stand up to him.

In the end, Kong itself is the real deal here, with his sheer physical presence, his exquisitely precise (and real) facial expressions, his dominance over the island's other oversized creatures. Whether being amused by Ann's theatrical tricks, enraged by movie director Carl Denham's attempt to subdue him for his own personal gain, ecstatic for having found his beloved Ann again, or upset and surprised by his realization he finally found his match with the military, Kong is as alive and real as any human being around him.

Before seeing the movie I remember reading that Jackson's T-Rexes were so good, they made Jurassic Park's T-Rexes look like they really were from the Jurassic. Well, I have to agree. All the dinosaurs just had a more "real and lived" quality to them, unlike Spielberg's ones, who looked slightly more polished. The action sequences involving any dinosaurs are absolutely thrilling and they'll leave you on the edge of your seat.

In the end, what Jackson has been able to achieve with his version of the classic big ape saga is "humanize" Kong for a new generation of moviegoers. Kong is not just a dumb big monkey anymore. He's now a smart, strong animal who follows his instincts in terms of survival in the wild, but who is also capable of feelings and emotions when his heart strings are tugged the right way.

Peter Jackson's King Kong is a spectacle for the eyes and a joy for the heart. All in all, a must see. Needless to say, this is more than worthy of belonging in anyone's video collection.