King Kong (2005)
Saw the movie in a theatre last night. Pretty good.
Unless you're new to America, or pre-teen, you should know who King Kong is. Even if you haven't seen either the original (1933) or first re-make (1976), you've certainly seen images of the giant ape hanging off a skyscraper, probably fighting aircraft.
Unlike the earlier re-make, this movie returned to the 1930s for its setting. It followed the original story much more closely than the '76 re-make, which lost much of the Skull Island adventure, and focused on the rampage in the then-modern New York City, ending with a climb up the brand new World Trade Towers instead of the Empire State Building.
I'd seen the original on VHS in high school, and probably since then on cable television, too, but the memory's fading some.
The graphics are pretty believable, and the scale tends to be maintained throughout. There are some pretty large creatures on Skull Island, and integrating the humans and background with them offered plenty of opportunity for goofs, and when I found myself looking for them, I didn't see many.
The characters were mostly full and the dialog not too bad. It was obvious they wanted the characters to fall in with the atmosphere of the pre-war days of the 1930s, but except for accenting the poor and having the olde-style cars, there really was little else they offered. Some of the skyline of New York was under construction, too, I guess that's something.
This remake captures most of the depth and charm of the original, adding much better effects than either of the other movies had, and twists in a little cynicism to boot.
The movie started getting a little long, with a few sequences going on for longer than the should have, some with less bang for the apparent mayhem. There are a few questionable segues between a few scenes, and a few moments where one has to suspend a little more disbelief than should be necessary.
It's a lot less character-driven love story than it's supposed to be, and the human characters don't have quite the development they should have. The best of them is the writer, but his character's written to pine for the heroine a lot more than it seems his character really should. In all, the characters let us down a little as they don't change as much as one would expect with the adventures they encounter.
It's a swell movie to see in the theatre, with the giant ape fighting dinosaurs and swinging through the giant ape jungle. It's certainly worth a look when it comes out on home video or television.
