Fun movie, could've done with some judicious cuts for timing's sake. There is a fine performance therein from the ubiquitous Jack Black and a real star turn from Naomi Watts as a down on her luck vaudeville comic who falls hard for a thirty foot gorilla.
Adrien Brody though, plays the luckless writer-hero as a sort of Stallone by way of Marc Blitzstein...and his nostils make Kong's look puny by comparison.
Mostly my complaint is that the CGI action scenes are too frantic by half. Years ago the speed standard was set at a fast but human pace by everyone from Harold Lloyd to Bruce Lee. Now when it comes time to make with the dinosaur stampedes everyone moves at a pace considered coherent by an editor slaving over a computer...in other words at an inhuman rate of speed.
As such the dramatic line of the action scenes is lost and we are left with a Dali-esque jumble of imagery.
That my friends has to change.
Still and all that Kong moves like an ape at least, and his mastery of that prehistoric jungle is a function of his brains and more importantly his will to power.
That comes across just fine....he even gets a Shakespearean death scene, far more sentimental and lurid than even the 1933 original.
And what the hell, it beats the hell out of the odious and contemptuous 1976 re-make with Jessica Lange even if it'll never quite eclipse the raw power of it's New Deal namesake.
Now I wonder if Peter Jackson will take destiny in hand and remake "Son of Kong"?
If he does lets hope Junior comes across with a little more dignity even if he stole the show when Skull Island (spoiler) finally sinks.
:)
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