Review of King Kong (2005) by Jacob B — 10 Aug 2017

A 3 hour movie about a gorilla. I know, right? While I was a bit restless when waiting to see the titular giant gorilla, when he makes his first appearance, the film remains an entertaining epic throughout.

To hell with Kong: Skull Island, this is the real modern Kong flick. The special effects are amazing, even by 2005 standards. Andy Serkis pulls off another breathtaking motion-capture performance as the gorilla whom we nowadays consider to be Harambe's cousin.

Serkis also plays a live-action character, and it helped keep me sane during the first hour of the movie, since Kong already appeared in the movie in a way. If only human Serkis and giant gorilla Serkis were in the same scene together for 2 or 3 minutes.

It'd be like seeing double. I would've killed to see that. The performances are great. I don't know why people say that they find it weird to see Jack Black in a serious role. I think he does a terrific job.

People love it when comedians do serious roles. Like Adam Sandler in Punch-Drunk Love or Jim Carrey in The Truman Show. Naomi Watts and Adrien Brody do great jobs of portraying Ann Darrow and Jack Driscoll, respectively as well and seem to have great romantic chemistry during the first hour of this movie which is basically a drama set on a ship being sailed by Fegelein, if you know what I mean.

Some of the slow-motion feels unnecessary. It made me think "No wonder the movie's three hours long". The action sequences are amazing. Seeing Kong fight against three T-Rexes was one of the best action scenes I have ever seen in my entire life.

And given how the CGI still holds up pretty well 12 years later, that's saying a lot. I might have to disagree with what the Audience Score on this movie says. They were probably just expecting another Lord of the Rings.

..but with a 25-foot gorilla. Never has a bond between a gorilla and a woman been so fascinating. It also focuses a bit on the themes of what showbiz can do to a person. Because of his financial desperation, Carl Denham resorted to animal cruelty by capturing a live Kong and taking him back to America.

..somehow so that he can appear as part of a Broadway act. Featuring blackface actors. Historical accuracy, y'all. All I can say is that I certainly prefer this King Kong movie over Skull Island, and that it manages to deliver despite somewhat slow pacing thanks to an exhaustingly overlong runtime with Andy Serkis pulling off another mesmerizing performance before he turned into a sentient, intelligent ape and a drunken CG Scottish captain around the same time ;).

You did good, Peter Jackson, you did good. Now I just need the required amount of time so that I can finally watch The Lord of the Rings trilogy along with that of The Hobbit. I'm a film junkie, deal with it.