After Peter Jackson directed The Lord of the Rings trilogy, I thought he couldn’t top himself, but he proved me wrong with his latest release of King Kong. As a matter of fact, I think he was probably the only director that could have directed the film with flare while sticking very closely to the original 1933 screenplay by James Creelman and Ruth Rose.

The story very closely reflects the 1933 classic. When Carl Denham (Jack Black), a manipulative self-serving director with an uncanny talent for the gift of gab, learns that his financial backers have pulled the plug on his latest film he decides to take matters into his own hands. He hijacks a ship to take him, his actors and film crew to Skull Island to get film footage that the world has never seen. But before he goes he has to replace his lead actress as the original has abandoned the project.. this is where he meets Ann Darrow (Naomi watts) a vaudevillian actress whose recently lost her job and was contemplating working a burlesque show . Luckily Ann takes Denham’s advice, “you can trust me, I’m a producer” and decides to get involved in the project. But before the cops that Denham has after him catch up, the ship leaves port headed for its secret destination of Skull Island.

After reaching the island the crew find it’s inhabited by a huge gorilla as well as ancient dinosaurs and a tribe of wild voodoo natives. Unfortunately for the crew the tribe they encounter have a nasty habit of offering people up to Kong, and they get one eyeful of Ann and decide shed be perfect for the giant gorilla. After Ann gets captured its time to be rescued by the writer Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody) that’s been dragged along, who of course has romantic feelings for the young blonde captive. So after a search and rescue mission ensues the crew luckily captures Kong and takes him back to New York City where after an escape makes that famous climb to the top of the empire state building.

So if you can put aside any ill feelings about remakes plaguing the movie screens more and more every day, you’ll see that this film is worth the chance. What I saw when I watched King Kong was a remake that stayed close to the story where it counted and improved in the few places it was necessary. What King Kong did for us that wasn’t done all that well in 1933 was built on to the characters a little more, especially with the leading starlet’s role who in the classic was a pretty face that screamed a lot but had very little depth. In the new version of the movie the pretty blonde that gets kidnapped actually has some in depth lines and a character building history and that really helps you see and feel the connection that the she makes with Kong and maybe understand it a little.

To be honest the biggest doubt I had about the film before I saw it was Jack Black. Don’t get me wrong I’m a big fan of Tenacious D (Jack Black’s band) and I was a big fan of his HBO show and I like the few goofy comedies he’s been in, but when I saw the role he was supposed to play I really had my doubts. I mean this is a comedic actor trying to portray a very serious character, but to my great surprise Jack Black played the hell out of that character. I think for me it was the intenseness of his gazes that really shed a light on the depth of his character of a producer that’s just out for himself and usually gets what he wants. What’s funny about the Carl Denham character is that there’s no reason not to like him by the end of the movie, but for some reason I didn’t. And if you remember another movie Jack Black was in, Orange County, then you should remember the star of that film, Colin Hanks (Tom Hank’s son) who for a second time made for a good character to mesh with Black. Hanks plays Preston in this film, Denham’s assistant and he really makes me think that good acting may very well be hereditary. Really these are the big names in the film and it seemed that this mixed bag of nuts actors seemed to mesh pretty well to make for a well acted film. Actors aside, the real star of the film is the computer generated imaging - especially the work done for Kong himself. The best thing they did with this big furry animal was to show all his emotions clearly and creatively with his facial expressions. Not that you couldn’t tell what the gorilla in the original film was thinking it was just super clear in this film.

Now don’t get me wrong I’m not saying this is a perfect movie, I did have a few minor things I didn’t like for instance, I felt there was a lot of dialogue and small subplot thing that were written in and definitely un-needed. I also thought that there were a few too many situations in the film that made me say “that would never happen” and whenever there’s too many of them it always stands out to me when the film’s over. Needless to say King Kong is a pretty good film, the acting’s decent, the CGI is first rate and there’s a few scenes with Kong in them ( I wont ruin it for those who haven’t seen it) that really make the movie a must see film.

Now as far as bonus material goes on the DVD it’s a pretty big let down considering this is a 3 hour movie there’s very little bonus material. There’s a history/documentary piece on New York City and on Skull Island but that’s pretty much it. King Kong was made available on DVD on March 28th and I recommend picking it when you get the chance.