king kong movie review

The heart of a big gorilla

Wee Naomi Watts intervenes to protect her Big Daddy Kong from an ill-socialized dinosaur in "King Kong."

It was beauty killed the beast.

There are astonishments to behold in Peter Jackson’s new “King Kong,” but one sequence, relatively subdued, holds the key to the movie’s success. Kong has captured Ann Darrow and carried her to his perch high on the mountain. He puts her down, not roughly, and then begins to roar, bare his teeth and pound his chest. Ann, an unemployed vaudeville acrobat, somehow instinctively knows that the gorilla is not threatening her but trying to impress her by behaving as an alpha male — the King of the Jungle. She doesn’t know how Queen Kong would respond, but she does what she can: She goes into her stage routine, doing backflips, dancing like Chaplin, juggling three stones.

Her instincts and empathy serve her well. Kong’s eyes widen in curiosity, wonder and finally what may pass for delight. From then on, he thinks of himself as the girl’s possessor and protector. She is like a tiny beautiful toy that he has been given for his very own, and before long, they are regarding the sunset together, both of them silenced by its majesty.

The scene is crucial because it removes the element of creepiness in the gorilla/girl relationship in the two earlier “Kongs” (1933 and 1976), creating a wordless bond that allows her to trust him. When Jack Driscoll climbs the mountain to rescue her, he finds her comfortably nestled in Kong’s big palm. Ann and Kong in this movie will be threatened by dinosaurs, man-eating worms, giant bats, loathsome insects, spiders, machineguns and the Army Air Corps, and could fall to their death into chasms on Skull Island or from the Empire State Building. But Ann will be as safe as Kong can make her, and he will protect her even from her own species.

The movie more or less faithfully follows the outlines of the original film, but this fundamental adjustment in the relationship between the beauty and the beast gives it heart, a quality the earlier film was lacking. Yes, Kong in 1933 cares for his captive, but she doesn’t care so much for him. Kong was always misunderstood, but in the 2005 film, there is someone who knows it.

As Kong ascends the skyscraper, Ann screams not because of the gorilla but because of the attacks on the gorilla by a society that assumes he must be destroyed. The movie makes the same kind of shift involving a giant gorilla that Spielberg’s “ Close Encounters of the Third Kind ” (1977) did when he replaced 1950s attacks on alien visitors with a very 1970s attempt to communicate with them (by 2005, Spielberg was back to attacking them, in “ War of the Worlds “).

“King Kong” is a magnificent entertainment. It is like the flowering of all the possibilities in the original classic film. Computers are used not merely to create special effects, but also to create style and beauty, to find a look for the film that fits its story. And the characters are not cardboard heroes or villains seen in stark outline, but quirky individuals with personalities.

Consider the difference between Robert Armstrong (1933) and Jack Black (2005) as Carl Denham, the movie director who lands an unsuspecting crew on Skull Island. A Hollywood stereotype based on Cecil B. DeMille has been replaced by one who reminds us more of Orson Welles . And in the starring role of Ann Darrow, Naomi Watts expresses a range of emotion that Fay Wray, bless her heart, was never allowed in 1933. Never have damsels been in more distress, but Fay Wray mostly had to scream, while Watts looks into the gorilla’s eyes and sees something beautiful there.

There was a stir when Jackson informed the home office that his movie would run 187 minutes. The executives had something around 140 minutes in mind, so they could turn over the audience more quickly (despite the greedy 20 minutes of paid commercials audiences now have inflicted upon them). After they saw the movie, their objections were stilled. Yes, the movie is a tad too long, and we could do without a few of the monsters and overturned elevated trains. But it is so well done that we are complaining, really, only about too much of a good thing. This is one of the great modern epics.

Jackson, fresh from his “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, wisely doesn’t show the gorilla or the other creatures until more than an hour into the movie. In this he follows Spielberg, who fought off producers who wanted the shark in “ Jaws ” to appear virtually in the opening titles. There is an hour of anticipation, of low ominous music, of subtle rumblings, of uneasy squints into the fog and mutinous grumblings from the crew, before the tramp steamer arrives at Skull Island — or, more accurately, is thrown against its jagged rocks in the first of many scary action sequences.

During that time, we see Depression-era breadlines and soup kitchens, and meet the unemployed heroes of the film: Ann Darrow (Watts), whose vaudeville theater has closed, and who is faced with debasing herself in burlesque; Carl Denham (Black), whose footage for a new movie is so unconvincing that the movie’s backers want to sell it off as background footage; Jack Driscoll ( Adrien Brody ), a playwright whose dreams lie Off-Broadway and who thrusts 15 pages of a first draft screenplay at Denham and tries to disappear.

They all find themselves aboard the tramp steamer of Capt. Englehorn ( Thomas Kretschmann ), who is persuaded to cast off just as Denham’s creditors arrive on the docks in police cars. They set course for the South Seas, where Denham believes an uncharted island may hold the secret of a box office blockbuster. On board, Ann and Jack grow close, but not too close, because the movie’s real love story is between the girl and the gorilla.

Once on Skull Island, the second act of the movie is mostly a series of hair-curling special effects, as overgrown prehistoric creatures endlessly pursue the humans, occasionally killing or eating a supporting character. The bridges and logs over chasms, so important in 1933, are even better used here, especially when an assortment of humans and creatures fall in stages from a great height, resuming their deadly struggle whenever they can grab a convenient vine, rock or tree. Two story lines are intercut: Ann and the ape, and everybody else and the other creatures.

The third act returns to Manhattan, which looks uncannily evocative and atmospheric. It isn’t precisely realistic, but more of a dreamed city in which key elements swim in and out of view. There’s a poetic scene where Kong and the girl find a frozen pond in Central Park, and the gorilla is lost in delight as it slides on the ice. It’s in scenes like this that Andy Serkis is most useful as the actor who doesn’t so much play Kong as embody him for the f/x team. He adds the body language.

Some of the Manhattan effects are not completely convincing (and earlier, on Skull Island, it’s strange how the fleeing humans seem to run beneath the pounding feet of the T. rexes without quite occupying the same space). But special effects do not need to be convincing if they are effective, and Jackson trades a little realism for a lot of impact and momentum. The final ascent of the Empire State Building is magnificent, and for once, the gorilla seems the same size in every shot.

Although Naomi Watts makes a splendid heroine, there have been complaints that Jack Black and Adrien Brody are not precisely hero material. Nor should they be, in my opinion. They are a director and a writer. They do not require big muscles and square jaws. What they require are strong personalities that can be transformed under stress. Denham the director clings desperately to his camera, no matter what happens to him, and Driscoll the writer beats a strategic retreat before essentially rewriting his personal role in his own mind. Bruce Baxter ( Kyle Chandler ) is an actor who plays the movie’s hero, and now has to decide if he can play his role for real. And Preston ( Colin Hanks ) is a production assistant who, as is often the case, would be a hero if anybody would give him a chance.

The result is a surprisingly involving and rather beautiful movie — one that will appeal strongly to the primary action audience, and also cross over to people who have no plans to see “King Kong” but will change their minds the more they hear. I think the film even has a message, and it isn’t that beauty killed the beast. It’s that we feel threatened by beauty, especially when it overwhelms us, and we pay a terrible price when we try to deny its essential nature and turn it into a product, or a target. This is one of the year’s best films.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

• Jack Black as Carl Denham
• Naomi Watts as Ann Darrow
• Andy Serkis as Lumpy
• Thomas Kretschmann as Capt. Englehorn
• Evan Parke as Hayes
• Adrien Brody as Jack Driscoll
• Colin Hanks as Preston

Based on a story by

• Edgar Wallace
• Merian C. Cooper
• Peter Jackson
• Philippa Boyens

Directed by

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King kong (2005).

• Common Sense Says
• Parents Say 21 Reviews
• Kids Say 68 Reviews

Common Sense Media Review

By Cynthia Fuchs , based on child development research. How do we rate?

Spectacular remake has violence, intense peril.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that King Kong has many violent scenes that could be scary for younger viewers, as well as plenty of action. Specifically, humans are attacked on the island by giant bugs, bats, and dinosaurs in sustained, pounding action scenes. Kong shifts from scary (chest-pounding and roaring) to…

Why Age 14+?

Frequent, unrelenting action movie violence. Upon landing on a mysterious island

Characters drink from flasks, drink from scotch bottles. Cigarette smoking throu

Occasional mild profanity. "Crap," "hell," "Christ,&quo

Neon signs in Times Square advertise '30s products (Chevrolet, Coca-Cola, Pe

A couple kisses. Ann runs around in her slip on Skull Island. Reference to &quot

Any Positive Content?

Negative qualities such as greed, self-serving ambition, monomania, vanity, hypo

While there are some good qualities in members of the ship's crew who displa

Violence & Scariness

Frequent, unrelenting action movie violence. Upon landing on a mysterious island, one of the lead characters is attacked and bitten by a feral child. Another character dies when a long spear is thrown at him and impales him. Characters do battle with dinosaurs, giant piranhas, assorted large bugs and primordial creatures, as well as King Kong. Characters are eaten, stomped, thrown, and swallowed to death. Characters use machine guns, pistols, swords, and hurled jugs of chloroform to do battle with King Kong and the other strange creatures of Skull Island. Later, in New York, they battle King Kong with machine guns and warplanes. Some demonic imagery -- the native tribe of Skull Island act and look like zombies, especially in the eyes.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Characters drink from flasks, drink from scotch bottles. Cigarette smoking throughout.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Occasional mild profanity. "Crap," "hell," "Christ," "goddamn."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Neon signs in Times Square advertise '30s products (Chevrolet, Coca-Cola, Pepsodent). Characters drink from plainly shown bottles of Johnny Walker Red.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

A couple kisses. Ann runs around in her slip on Skull Island. Reference to "boobies." Scene outside of a burlesque show advertising topless dancers.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Messages

Negative qualities such as greed, self-serving ambition, monomania, vanity, hypocrisy, and cruelty are heightened almost to the point of parody -- most characters who embody these qualities suffer consequences for their behavior. Loyalty, bravery, and the idea that heroes exist in real life.

Positive Role Models

While there are some good qualities in members of the ship's crew who display courage and loyalty, nearly all the characters are essentially archetypes who serve the action of the story. These characters tend to embody negative qualities such as greed, monomania, cynicism, hypocrisy, and cruelty to animals, among others; many of these negative values are parodied to a certain extent, and many of the characters who display these qualities suffer the consequences of their actions. While Ann seems to see the goodness and kindness in King Kong, it's hard not to wonder to what extent Stockholm Syndrome plays into it, even amidst scenes of Hollywood magic in which King Kong and Ann "ice skate" together in Central Park.

Parents need to know that King Kong has many violent scenes that could be scary for younger viewers, as well as plenty of action. Specifically, humans are attacked on the island by giant bugs, bats, and dinosaurs in sustained, pounding action scenes. Kong shifts from scary (chest-pounding and roaring) to sympathetic; he's attacked brutally by men in tanks and planes, shooting guns. Characters drink and smoke cigarettes; Ann wears a slip through most of her adventures on the island. Most troubling is the depiction of the black island natives, who appear as nightmarish, surreal images, chanting and shaking when they sacrifice Ann to Kong. The showbiz version of this scene (re-created in New York) uses blackface performers. Occasional mild profanity: "crap," "hell," "Christ," "goddamn." To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

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Parent and Kid Reviews

• Parents say (21)
• Kids say (68)

Based on 21 parent reviews

Great remake

Best remake i've seen, what's the story.

Barely surviving the Depression in New York City, Ann Darrow ( Naomi Watts ) loses her vaudeville job just when film producer Carl Denham ( Jack Black ) is seeking a leading lady for his new film project, to be shot on "unknown" Skull Island, which, unknown to them, is home to KING KONG. Denham and crew set out on a ship; also onboard is earnest playwright Jack Driscoll ( Adrien Brody ), who starts a romantic relationship with Ann. On Skull Island, they encounter violent natives and a land that time forgot filled with dinosaurs and other enormous beasts. The natives kidnap Ann and present her as sacrifice to the giant ape Kong, who falls for the diminutive beauty. Kong's weakness for Ann results in his being trapped by showman Denham, who brings him to New York City to appear in a sideshow the likes of which have never been seen.

Is It Any Good?

What sets Peter Jackson's movie apart from its predecessor is its characterization of Ann as courageous and her insight when she is grateful for Kong's protection. In this excellent version of the classic 1933 film , the relationship between Ann and the giant ape is everything. It's not "beauty that kills the beast," but greed, meanness, and fear that destroy his admirable "nature" and emblematic manhood. The men around her adore her and even indulge in heroics to save her, but none is so compelling a personality as the gigantic gorilla who comes to love her. Like the 1933 original film, Jackson's adaptation examines the excesses and vagaries of show business.

While the movie demonizes the black natives who throw back their heads and chant during their ritual to sacrifice Ann to Kong, it also offers a complication in the ship's courageous, sensible, and black first mate, Hayes (Evan Parke). It's telling that Hayes does not see the reenactment of the tribal ritual as Denham's stage show, populated by performers in overtly offensive blackface. If this scene illustrates the movie's awareness of the problem (the crude translation of blackness by a white "producer"), it's not quite a resolution. Neither is the relationship between Ann and Kong, though she tries mightily to do right.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the relationship between Ann and Kong in King Kong . How does their mutual affection extend beyond person and pet to something more complicated?

How does Denham's exploitation of Kong parallel his exploitation of people?

How do the military attacks make Kong increasingly sympathetic (even an underdog, out of place in the city), as he tries to protect Ann and then she tries to protect him?

How do the blackface performers serve as commentary on mainstream fear of the "unknown"?

How does this version of King Kong draw on the original version of the movies, and where does it stand on its own? What are the ways in which it draws on epic novels like Heart of Darkness and Moby Dick ?

Movie Details

• In theaters : December 14, 2005
• On DVD or streaming : March 28, 2006
• Cast : Adrien Brody , Jack Black , Naomi Watts
• Director : Peter Jackson
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Universal Pictures
• Genre : Action/Adventure
• Run time : 187 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : frightening adventure violence and some disturbing images.
• Last updated : July 8, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

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What to watch next.

Jurassic Park

Mighty Joe Young (1998)

King Kong (1976)

King Kong (1933)

Movie monsters, sci-fi movies.

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Looking at Film from Every Angle

Review: King Kong (2005)

Wesley Lovell

Peter Jackson

Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson (Screenplay: Merian C. Cooper, Edgar Wallace)

Naomi Watts, Jack Black, Adrien Brody, Thomas Kretschmann, Colin Hanks, Andy Serkis, Evan Parke, Jamie Bell, Lobo Chan, John Sumner, Craig Hall, Kyle Chandler

MPAA Rating

PG-13 (For frightening adventure violence and some disturbing images)

Buy/Rent Movie

Source material.

It’s been remade before but Peter Jackson’s lavish retelling of the classic black-and-white film King Kong is quite entertaining.

Instead of putting on a mangy ape suit, Andy Serkis returns to the motion-capture acting arena as the famed Kong, eighth wonder of the world. With only motion sensors on his body and a visual effects department worthy of an Academy Award, Serkis transforms the brooding beast into a life-and-blood character on par with his riveting performance as lonely Gollum in The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

There are many characters to pay attention to, which could be part of the reason why the film lasts more than three hours, but as we build our way to the exciting adventure scenes, we’re glad we’ve learned a little something about these people.

Naomi Watts does an impressive job in the role made famous by Fay Wray (who even merits a wink-nudge line in the film). She plays the doe-eyed Ann Darrow with a vigor that’s needed for such a central role. Playing her love interest playwright Jack Driscoll, Adrien Brody gives everyone reasons to forget his now-famous Halle Berry kiss. His performance is good enough to highlight his characters motivations but falls short of greatness.

There are other quality performances in King Kong but it also has its share of dreadful ones. Money-hungry director Carl Denham played by comedian Jack Black wants to make a movie that he thinks will be huge. When his wildest dreams are fulfilled discovering the island that leads him to his greatest discovery, we expect to see a more obsessive character. Black stares intently at everything, almost never blinking. It’s probably the most disconcerting thing about his performance. You would expect more expression from an actor whose been given raves for his work in School of Rock but his work here is laughable. It’s very difficult to imagine such a character as realistic. He’s larger than life, like his creation, but lacking entirely in emotion. Sure, Black changes his vocal tones when conveying excitement or disappointment but without a more ocular investment in the performance, it feels entirely wasted.

A few other actors are worthy of note. Thomas Kretschmann as the crusty sea captain, Evan Park as the wizened first mate and Jamie Bell as the courageous former stowaway are each delightful. It’s a bit of a recognition jump when you see Bell’s Jimmy for the first time. Sudden memories of Billy Elliott rush back and you realize how much he’s grown as an adult, if not as an actor.

What truly makes King Kong special is its visual effects. Lord of the Rings impresario Jackson knows what it takes to make an exciting film. Much like Steven Spielberg in his youth, Jackson creates improbable situations for his stories and brings them to brilliant life on the big screen. The world of depression era New York is marvelous to behold. From the squalor of Shanty Town to the glamour of Broadway, we’re reminded of a past that can only exist in our most vivid memories.

King Kong is exciting, if not a bit long. Everything is so spectacularly realized that anyone who loves a grand adventure and doesn’t mind sitting still for three hours will enjoy the marvel that is King Kong .

Review Written

December 31, 2005

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King Kong Review (Peter Jackson's 2005 Remake)

Review: jaw-dropping effects dampened by film's inexplicable length..

3 out of 5 Stars, 6/10 Score

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FILM REVIEW

'You Beast,' She Said, and Meant It

By A.o. Scott

• Dec. 13, 2005

Among the reasons "King Kong" -- the old 100-minute black-and-white version, that is -- has retained its appeal over the years is that it reminds audiences of the do-it-yourself, seat-of-the-pants ethic of early motion pictures. In 1933, when RKO released it, sound film was in its infancy, and film itself was in the midst of a coltish, irrepressible adolescence. Merian C. Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack, who directed the first "Kong," understood the alchemical convergence of gimmickry and sublimity that lay at the heart of the medium's unrivaled potential to generate spectacle and sensation.

That potential still exists, but it may be harder to find these days, given how much bigger and more self-important movies have become. In his gargantuan, mightily entertaining remake, "King Kong," Peter Jackson tries to pay homage to the original even as he labors to surpass it. The sheer audacious novelty of the first "King Kong" is not something that can be replicated, but in throwing every available imaginative and technological resource into the effort, Mr. Jackson comes pretty close.

The threshold of sensation has risen drastically since the 30's, when movies were still associated with older, somewhat disreputable forms of popular culture. Unlike the 1976 remake, which tried to drag the story into the corporate present, Mr. Jackson's version returns it to the Great Depression, reminding us that the road to the multiplex stretches back through the music halls and burlesque houses of those bygone days.

Of course, this new "King Kong" (written by Mr. Jackson and his frequent collaborators Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens) cost more than $200 million to make and can hardly be called scruffy. It arrives burdened with impossible expectations and harassed by competition from all sides. The director, who not so long ago was making low-budget monster movies in his native New Zealand, clearly wants to hold onto the artisanal, eccentric spirit of the past -- his own and that of the art form he loves. But at the same time he must live up to the success of his "Lord of the Rings" trilogy and prove to a glutted, gluttonous audience that large-scale, effects-driven filmmaking is still capable of novelty, freshness and emotional impact.

He succeeds through a combination of modesty and reckless glee, topping himself at every turn and reveling in his own showmanship. His "King Kong," though it has a few flourishes of tongue-in-cheek knowingness -- including references to Cooper and Fay Wray and shots that directly quote the original -- never feels self-conscious or arch. And though it presents the interspecies love story between Kong (Andy Serkis, who also plays a shipboard cook named Lumpy) and Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) with touching sincerity, the picture wears its themes lightly, waving away the somber, allegorical sententiousness that too many blockbusters ("Lord of the Rings" included) rely upon to justify their exorbitant costs. The movie is, almost by definition, too much -- too long, too big, too stuffed with characters and over-the-top set pieces -- but it is animated by an impish, generous grace. Three hours in the dark with a giant, angry ape should leave you feeling battered and exhausted, but "King Kong" is as memorable for its sweetness as for its sensationalism.

After setting a nostalgic mood with Art Deco titles and James Newton Howard's old-fashioned movie-palace overture, "King Kong" plunges into a New York of vaudeville houses, soup lines and Hooverville encampments. Ann, a winsome, wholesome hoofer, is performing in a threadbare revue that shuts down just as Carl Denham (Jack Black) loses the star of his next movie. Somehow, he entices not only Ann, but also her favorite playwright, the Barton Finkish Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody), onto a rusty tub whose unsavory captain (Thomas Kretschmann) captures and transports exotic animals. Denham's plan is to take his film crew -- which also includes his anxious assistant (Colin Hanks) and lantern-jawed star (Kyle Chandler) -- to Skull Island, where they will discover

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King Kong (2005)

There are stories that demand three or more hours of film to tell them. Lord of the Rings was one of them, King Kong isn't. Peter Jackson could have and should have lost at least thirty minutes from his monkey opus. He didn't, be ready to forgive him. Is this a movie good enough to overcome its excessive, 187 minute length? Oh hell yes.

Directed and co-written by Peter Jackson, Kong uses a combination of models, sets, computer animation, and Andy Serkis in a motion-capture unitard to return to theaters the giant ape made famous back in 1933. Since his debut in the first Kong , the simian’s story has been retold ad nauseam, both in official sequels and not-so-official ones like Mighty Joe Young . None of them have approached the greatness of this, perhaps not even the original.

The basics of the story remain much the same. An obsessively self-promoting filmmaker named Carl Denham ( Jack Black ) loads a film crew and a hapless young actress named Anne Darrow ( Naomi Watts ) onto a boat called Venture to set out for a mysterious place known only as Skull Island. There, they find more at their shooting location than they bargained for. The natives kidnap Darrow’s leading lady and sacrifice her to their local god… a 25ft tall ape named Kong. But Kong doesn't do with Anne what he usually does with his other victims. Her blonde hair hypnotizes him, her beauty beguiles him, and so he leaves her extremities intact. This monkey's in love.

The essentials remain spot on faithful to the original movie Jackson is remaking, but in between those basics he's made this pic his own. Now more than a sympathetic monster movie, Kong has become a deeply emotional, sometimes tortured film. Thematically, this is a story not about fighting gargantuan monsters, but about loneliness. Naomi Watts is a big part of that deeper story, she plays off Kong like the uber-furball is actually standing there. Anne identifies with his tragedy, and we see him through her eyes.

This has the unexpected effect of making it possible to absolutely love Kong, even while he's biting the head off one of the movie's human hero characters. King Kong's not pulling any punches, and Jackson’s film is almost surprisingly brutal in the way people are smashed, shaken, shot, impaled, and in many cases eaten. Again, Jackson has taken that 1933 source material and put his stamp on it. His affinity for the macabre is all over the movie, in a way that's been absent in past incarnations. As a result, the film is in parts flat out scary, the kind of scary you don't usually get outside of Freddie Krueger. Take a date and wait for her to crush your arm during the movie's gleefully gruesome bug attack.

If there's anywhere Kong misses, it's only because Peter's reach has extended beyond his grasp. Anyone who's seen The Chronicles of Narnia may have noticed that movie's difficulty with blending computer animated characters into live action shots. Simply put, sometimes they don’t look like they fit. King Kong has the opposite problem, and the movie’s most ambitious scenes are consistently plagued by flesh and blood, humans who don't mesh into the beautifully constructed backgrounds behind them. You’re left you with a movie full of actors that look like they’re running in front of a screen while a lot of wild hoopla goes on behind them, which in point of fact they are.

It’s kind of odd, when you consider that WETA had a hand in the effects on both Kong and Narnia . On Narnia they did the set building and live-action practical effects, so they ended up with a movie in which the computer animated characters don’t fit into the live set pieces. On Kong they did the CGI, and ended up with living actors who don’t fit into the computer generated stuff. Luckily, most of the film uses a combination of different effects techniques, and this isn't a problem that happens consistently enough to kill the pic. But it's worth noting that this isn't a new issue for Jackson. Some might remember a few really bad blue screen shots in the Balrog cave from Fellowship of the Ring . Other directors seem to manage blue screen work better. George Lucas 's Star Wars movies for instance, whatever their faults, at least convincingly place the actors involved inside a computer generated world. In Kong , where Jackson is now using more computer effects than ever, the problem has only become a tougher nut to for him to crack.

What makes these little effects flaws all the more frustrating is that the movie’s computer generated creatures are actually quite spectacular (Kong in particular, look into his eyes, he has a soul) on their own, it’s only that the actors interacting with them don’t always look as though they’re standing on the same planet.

Those special effects criticisms are small potatoes in the face of a feature film this masterfully created. It's too involving and full of little delights to be dragged down by fx work. This is the kind of movie that'd be nearly as good were it still using those primitive stop-motion techniques put to work on the original. Whenever a bad green screen shot pulls you out, Jackson’s killer cast is there to pull you back. I’ve already talked about how important Watts is to this thing, but stop a minute and consider Carl Denham. Jack Black absolutely owns this pic, and I found myself more interested in what happened to him than the other male lead, heroic Jack Driscoll ( Adrien Brody ). It’s not that Brody isn’t good, he’s actually perfect, but Denham’s character has been wonderfully fleshed out in this new version, and Black grabs on to the now fleshier part and cooks it with all the barely contained energy he can muster. It’s not only the leads that make an impact. There are more significant minor characters in this new Kong than in any other incarnation. Andy Serkis is having a blast as Lumpy the cook, and his death is unforgettable. Colin Hanks turns in a nice stint as Denham’s assistant, and the closest thing the Denham has to a conscience.

It's clear from what's up on screen that the people making it love this material, and Jackson has found a way to bring new life to it. He adds sentiment and heart to the exiting Kong mythos that’s never been there before. Once the script gets to New York, there’s such an air of inevitability to what happens, that even in the film’s happiest moments it’s also breathtakingly sad. This is easily one of the year’s most gut wrenching tragedies, and it’s a pretty good action-adventure movie too. You may have seen King Kong before, but you’ve never seen it like this.

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All the king kong movies, ranked.

With the release of 'Godzilla x Kong: New Empire,' here's a ranking of the 13 Kong movies — worst to best.

By Richard Newby

Richard Newby

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The Eighth Wonder of the World!

King Kong has been a global pop-culture icon for more than 90 years, and the great ape shows no signs of slowing down. While most audiences are familiar with just a few Kong entries, you might be surprised to know there are 13 Kong films, including the most recent entry to the Monsterverse: Godzilla x Kong: New Empire , which, despite the second billing, is very much a Kong-centric film. Across television, film, comics and novels, Kong has yet to be aped, though other primates have certainly tried.

Below, I make the climb down from where the original Kong met his tragic fate and rank his films, from near-death experiences to satisfying safety. Here they are, worst to best.

13. Kong: Return to the Jungle (2006)

The third animated Kong film, and the second to follow Kong: The Animated Series , is just about as bottom of the barrel as you can get in the Kong saga. Made with “state-of-the-art CGI Animation!” as the DVD proclaims, Return to the Jungle has headache-inducing visuals that look like test animation from the early days of the PlayStation 2. In the film, Kong is captured by an evil hunter who plans to put Kong, and the dinosaurs of Kong Island in a special zoo, and it’s up to Kong’s friends, Jason (Kirby Morrow), Tann (Scott McNeil), and Lua (Saffron Henderson) to rescue him. Even as a franchise completionist, this was dire. But you’re in luck, so are the next two!

12. The Mighty Kong (1998)

The missing element of King Kong (1933) was that it wasn’t a musical, you say? Well, 1998’s The Mighty Kong solves that. The direct-to-video animated film is essentially a rapidly paced, poorly edited remake of the original movie, starring Dudley Moore in his final role as Carl Denham. You might suppose it was made for kids, and I guess that was the intention, only it’s so boring, so focused on the weirdly mature romance between Ann and Jack, while also being overly silly, that it’s not clear who this was made for. There is clearly an aim to draw in the Disney crowd, with Jodie voicing Ann and The Sherman Brothers ( The Jungle Book , The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh , Mary Poppins ) writing the songs. But, there’s not an earworm in the bunch. Oh, and Kong falls from the Empire State Building and lives, forever trapped in this musical misery.

11. Kong: King of Atlantis (2005)

The first follow-up to Kong: The Animated Series is blissfully not made with “state-of-the-art CGI Animation!” and instead just traditional hand-drawn animation. Kong, who is not the original Kong, but a clone whose DNA was stabilized with the DNA of his human brother, Jason, struggles to protect Kong Island from the threat of a rising Atlantis. The concept of Kong being manipulated by a snake-woman sorceress to replace the world above with the fabled sunken one is the kind of Edgar Rice Burroughs/Robert E. Howard-esque storytelling Kong could thrive in. But alas, the pulpiness is overridden by shallow storytelling and, if you can believe it, musical numbers. Again. The songs here largely rely on nonsensical rhyming and repeated refrains that pad the film’s runtime to a hour and 9 minutes, when 25 minutes would’ve sufficed.

10. King Kong Lives (1986)

We’ve made it out of the animated era of Kong to arrive at, well, a live-action film that frankly isn’t much better. The sequel to King Kong (1976), King Kong Lives brings back director John Guillermin for a dull affair that finds Kong alive after his fall from the World Trade Center, and in need of a heart transplant. How does a giant ape get a heart transplant? Well scientists, led by Dr. Amy Franklin (Linda Hamilton) engineer an artificial one. But there’s not enough blood to keep it pumping, so adventurer Hank Mitchell (Brian Kerwin) returns to the mysterious island from the previous film and finds a female Kong and captures her, just like that. Dubbed Lady Kong, the female ape takes part in a successful blood transfusion, before she and Kong escape from the lab where they are pursued by the army led by the mustache-twirling Lt. Col. Archie Nevitt (John Ashton). While it finally seems like there might be some excitement in store, it’s largely a bore, undercut by frequent attempts at comedy. How does one make giant apes facing the military boring, despite explosions and primate bloodshed? For a film that was intended to be an emotional romance, the only thing moving about King Kong Lives is the restlessness your body goes through while watching it.

9. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024)

The latest entry in Legendary’s Monsterverse once again brings Kong and Godzilla together, but this time as allies instead of enemies. Much like Adam Wingard’s previous film, GvK , the movie is far more interested in monster fights than human characters. Some of the fights are cool, while others are a bit wild with the camera movements, making it difficult to track where the creatures are spatially. There are large swaths of the film that take place in the Hollow Earth, where the human characters, Dr. Andrews (Rebecca Hall), Bernie (Brian Tyree Henry), Trapper (Dan Stevens) and Jia (Kaylee Hottle) are absent, and Kong and his compatriots might as well have been gorilla-sized, robbing the film of the human perspective needed to give the titans scale. And when humans do become the focus, they largely exist to either provide exposition or relief. While there are elements of what could’ve been a strong Kong movie, including his finding a surrogate son in Suko, GxK s hoves Godzilla into the mix where he doesn’t do much other than undercut the drama in Kong’s fight against the villainous giant primate, Skar King who, even with his captive kaiju, the ice breathing Shimo, is not a threat big enough to require the team-up between the two in the first place.

8. King Kong Escapes (1967)

Following Toho’s hit, King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962), Toho partnered with the then-current owners of Kong, Rankin/Bass, and director Ishirō Honda to develop a film loosely based on Rankin/Bass’ cartoon series, The King Kong Show . The result is a weird, albeit fun, mishmash of genres that sees the evil, Bond villain-inspired Dr. Who (Hideyo Amamoto) build Mechani-Kong for the sole purpose of excavating a site in the North Pole where the radioactive Element X is hidden. Mechani-Kong fails, and Dr. Who decides no imitators will suffice, he needs the real Kong. Hypnotized, Kong does Dr. Who’s bidding until Kong’s latest human love interest Lt. Susan Watson (Linda Jo Miller) breaks him out of his trance, just in time for a showdown with Mechani-Kong. The plot is simple, but there’s still fun to be had with this entry. Originally Toho had planned for Ebirah, Horror of the Deep (1966) to be a Kong installment as well but after disagreements over the choice of director, Rankin/Bass dropped out and Horror of the Deep became a Godzilla film, though it still feels very much like a Kong film.

7. Godzilla vs. Kong (2021)

The fourth entry in Legendary’s Monsterverse series brings the two titans together again for the first time in nearly 60 years. Wingard’s film focuses heavily on the monster fights, but loses the humanity and thematic reckoning with the continued effects of nuclear power on the environment of the modern world that defined the previous three entries. Yes, the fights between Godzilla and Kong are fun to watch, but there’s a lack of awe as a result of the majority of the human cast being sidelined or cut out of the film entirely. Where is Jessica Henwick? Madison Russell (Millie Bobby Brown) doesn’t get any character development, and the new characters introduced like Nathan Lind (Alexander Skarsgård) and Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall) are ciphers. Some subplots go nowhere and characters, like Ren Serizawa (Shun Oguri) aren’t even connected to very obvious threads from previous films that would’ve added some layers. It’s a film cut to pieces in post-production, and none of it amounts to anything more than “big monsters, crash, bang, crash,” which can be entertaining for a while, but it doesn’t feel in tune with the Monsterverse as it previously existed.

6. King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)

The third Kong installment and third Godzilla installment saw the icons come to blows. The result was the most-attended Godzilla film in Japan, until Godzilla: Minus One (2023), when a pharmaceutical company captures Kong to use as their spokes-ape until Godzilla awakens and frees himself from an iceberg. At that point, the Japanese military decides to use Kong as a weapon against Godzilla. Despite Godzilla being on his home turf, the giant reptile was still a villain at this point in the franchise, so despite Kong being an American creation, he triumphs over Godzilla. The battle includes the famous scene-turned-meme, in which Kong shoves a tree, trunk-first, down Godzilla’s throat. But battle aside, there is some greater significance to the film in how it explores pharmaceutical consumerism through exploitation and dehumanization. The film also launched the popular “Godzilla vs.” formula, which carried the Toho productions well into the 21st century.

5. The Son of Kong (1933)

Released just nine months after the sensation of King Kong , Son of Kong is a much slighter film (running at just 69 minutes) and was made as a cash-grab. Despite that, director Ernest B. Schoedsack manages to deliver a very entertaining B-movie that follows Kong’s offspring along with the publicly despised Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong). With the threat of prison looming over them, Denham and Captain Englehorn (Frank Reicher) make for the seas and pick up a stowaway, Hilda (Helen Mack), and the rumor of buried treasure on Skull Island along the way. Upon his return to Skull Island, Denham befriends a giant albino ape whom he dubs Little Kong. The film is pulpier than the original, showcasing Little Kong’s fight against the island’s dinosaurs and a massive cave bear. But there’s something charming about Denham’s relationship with him and the film serves as a bit of a redemption for the infamous promotor. Despite its hasty production, Son of Kong doesn’t miss a step in its stop-motion effects, and much like the original King Kong , Son of Kong was also an influence on Peter Jackson, who owns one of the two existing Little Kong models.

4. Kong: Skull Island (2017)

The second installment in the Monsterverse, directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts, takes Kong back to a time before he was King and was just a little fella. Ok, so not little exactly, but smaller and younger than the Kong we’ve come to know in the current entries. Vogt-Roberts populates Skull Island with strange creatures, including the Skullcrawlers, and an entire ecosystem of giant monsters, tackling the film with a monster-lover’s glee. But alongside those impressive creations, the film doesn’t refrain from a semi-serious consideration of Vietnam vets sent to explore the island, while still carrying the war with them. Though it contains plenty of visual references to Apocalypse Now , it never goes that deep or dark. Not that it necessarily needed to, but the only major flaw of the film is that the tone isn’t entirely consistent. But it does enough to provide an emotional connection to some of the characters, namely soldier James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston), anti-war photographer Mason Weaver (Brie Larson), Army Lieutenant Colonel Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson) and Hank Marlow (John C. Reilly) who survived on the island after crashing during WWII. The film also makes great strides in its portrayal of the Island’s indigenous people, who are protected by Kong. Also, Larry Fong’s cinematography makes for some of the most striking images in Kong’s cinematic history.

3. King Kong (1976)

The first remake of King Kong is the first Kong movie I had the experience of seeing, and thus I have a particular fondness for it, one that holds up upon rewatch. Starring Jeff Bridges, Jessica Lange and Charles Grodin, King Kong sails on the talent of its cast, along with the effects by Carlo Rambaldi and Rick Baker. While it doesn’t quite evoke the horror or thrills of the original film, it makes up for it with a sweeping romantic adventure that could’ve only been made in the ’70s. When Petrox Oil Company exec Fred Wilson (Grodin) discovers evidence of an oil deposit on a mysterious island, he plans an expedition to the island, despite the warnings of paleontologist, Jack Prescott (Bridges), who has heard legends of the island’s many dangers. After discovering an actress on a raft, Dwan (Lange), the only survivor of a yacht that exploded, Prescott has all the more reason to stay. The journey to the island doesn’t deliver on the promise of oil, but there is a great power there. Behind the giant wall built by a tribe of indigenous people, lives Kong. Refusing to come back to the States empty-handed, Wilson decides to capture Kong. Interestingly enough, Guillermin’s film borrows a key narrative element of King Kong vs. Godzilla . This time, instead of Kong being used as an advertisement for a pharmaceutical company, he’s the prize of Big Oil who use him as a crown-clad mascot, mockingly named King Kong. With charming chemistry between Bridges and Lange, the theatrics of Grodin, and a show-stopper of a third act that is wildly bloody, King Kong succeeds as both a remake of a timeless story and it’s a time capsule of a period defined by gas shortages, a President invested in big oil and the continued exploitation of the resources of stolen land.

2. King Kong (1933)

King Kong not only changed cinema, it made giant monsters a staple of our media, inspiring the creation of Godzilla , Mothra , Them! , Cloverfield , Pacific Rim and on and on the list goes. Considered to be one of cinema’s greatest achievements and a technical marvel that proved revolutionary for stop-motion, matte paintings rear-screen projection, and miniatures. There’s not a genre film in existence that doesn’t owe something to King Kong .

Directed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, King Kong f ollows documentarian Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) who has his sights set on a new film, shot at a far and exotic location. After hiring struggling actress Ann Darrow (Fay Wray), Denham sets off the ship, The Venture, along with Captain Englehorn (Frank Reicher) and his first mate, Jack Driscoll (Bruce Cabot) to Skull Island where they meet an indigenous tribe who decides to sacrifice Ann to their god, Kong, leading to Fay Wray’s iconic scream. Denham, Jack and several crew members search for Ann on the island, encountering dinosaurs and all manner of extinct life forms. Dated as some of the effects are now, the film still feels thrilling, and the narrative so involving that we invite a suspension of belief so that we might believe in the magic of what’s on screen, just like the audiences of 1933. By the time we arrive at that iconic ending, of Kong atop the Empire State Building, Ann clutched in his hand, as the Biplanes swarm him, it’s nearly impossible not to feel compassion for this monster, to project our humanity onto this model figure and turn him real while we submit to the chills that take over when Denham offers the film’s final, tragic statement, “No, it wasn’t the airplanes. It was Beauty killed the Beast.”

1. King Kong (2005)

No, it’s not as influential, nor revolutionary, as the 1933 film, but Peter Jackson’s King Kong is a giant beating heart that’s not only a love letter to the original film, but to everything that made Peter Jackson the director Peter Jackson — the horror, the fantasy, the imaginary world and theatric considerations of love.

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy is his magnum opus, but King Kong feels like his most personal film, his gift to the 9-year-old boy he once was whose life was changed by seeing the 1933 film. Jackson had worked towards this film since 1996, and you could almost call it obsession not unlike Carl Denham’s (Jack Black) to deliver something on a scale the world had never seen, but also something definitive to his journey as an artist. As the most expensive movie ever made at the time, it’s one of those ambitious swings where a director puts the entirety of himself on display and you can feel it in every frame.

The plot follows the same beats as the 1933 film, but Jackson finds numerous places to expand on the characters, their relationships and the world of Skull Island, all backed by Andrew Lesnie’s rich cinematography, composer James Newton Howard’s enthralling score, and the epic and emotional storytelling of co-writers Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens. When I saw it, I felt something akin to what audiences felt watching The Wizard of Oz (1939) for the first time. Like stepping out of the real world and into one of pure imagination, a land of endless discoveries where every monster-kid could find something to captivate them. Dinosaurs, giant insects, hidden temples and Kong (Andy Serkis) himself. Kong’s relationship with Ann (Naomi Watts) contains a kind of lyrical beauty, compared to her more practical, though no less engaging, romance with Jack (Adrian Brody). There’s an ice-skating scene between Ann and Kong before the climax of the film, and knowing the tragedy to come, it’s one of the most heartbreaking scenes in 21st-century cinema. As far as remakes go, this is one that not only expands on the original in some exciting ways, but it gives the audience better insight into the filmmaker.

Head here for a ranking of all the Godzilla monsters.

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King Kong Review

15 Dec 2005

187 minutes

There are many reasons why directors attempt remakes, but “I wanna ’cos it’s my favourite movie ever” shouldn’t really rank as the most encouraging. Spielberg sensed contemporary relevance in his update of The War Of The Worlds. Soderbergh saw vast room for improvement with Ocean’s Eleven. And numerous others have, quite simply, thought a new take on an old story would guarantee big bucks. No doubt Universal had the latter in mind when finally greenlighting this latest reworking of the 1933 monster classic, but, as is well-documented, that wasn’t the key driving impulse. No, Peter Jackson just wanted to emulate the film that lit his first fires of inspiration and repay that creative ignition with a fitting tribute.

Pre-Lord Of The Rings, this sounded like pure folly, especially as the last Kong (John Guillermin’s ’76 monstrosity) was such a flop. No wonder Jackson struggled to get it rolling in ’96, regardless of the fact that remakes of Godzilla and Mighty Joe Young were already crowding out the marketplace. Of course, after Rings, Jackson could have suggested remaking Plan 9 From Outer Space and been showered with greenbacks. Still wouldn’t have made it a great idea. Yet his wanting to remake Kong, even if cinema quite frankly doesn’t need another Kong, turns out to be this movie’s greatest strength.

Like Sam Raimi, Jackson is a filmmaker who lets his inner fanboy guide him rather than blind him. Indeed, Jackson’s avidity is so tangible — in his insertion of winking in-jokes , in his choreography of the action sequences and, most importantly, in his detailed realisation of the great, battle-scarred ape himself— it allows us to easily forgive the few flaws the movie does have.

Such as? Well, why, for example, spend so long in the first act detailing middle-rung characters like Venture crewman Jimmy (Jamie Bell) and Captain Englehorn (Thomas Kretschmann) if you’re just going to drop them out of the story come the climactic New York rampage? It seems an odd choice to pad the script in one area, pushing our arrival at Skull Island back to the end of the first hour, then keep it lean in another. And on the technical side, the occasional CG shot looks unfinished; an ambitious brontosaurus stampede, for instance, doesn’t quite gel its madly scrambling human element with its dino-participants to form a believable whole.

Fortunately, Jackson spends so much time knocking your socks off that you won’t really feel like scratching your head. (Besides, there’s a level of criticism you just can’t go to, unless you want to start questioning Ann’s Wolverine-like ability to resist skeletal fractures, while accepting the existence of a 25-foot-tall gorilla.) His horror sensibility serves the story well, as does his dark sense of humour — watch Denham mourn his ruined celluloid like his companions mourning their dead friends. He also teases fine performances out of his ensemble, Jack Black deserving a special mention for making Denham so appealingly reprehensible.

The overlong Skull Island section, meanwhile, might be an indulgent action binge but it still out-Spielbergs Spielberg at his most Jurassic: icky giant bugs elicit schoolgirl squeals, while Kong’s T-Rex tussle causes fanboys to shriek with delight. Even the monster-free sequences will cause mandibles to slacken, such as the Venture’s attempts to navigate the island’s rock-spike coast, or the Kong-summoning ritual, disturbingly portrayed as an ecstatic religious experience for the island’s wretched, hissing natives.

As for the King himself, if he doesn’t win this film the special-effects Oscar in a few months, Empire will be a monkey’s uncle. In fact, if the Academy weren’t so damn conservative, he’d be in with a fighting chance of earning Andy Serkis (who provided the motion-captured moves) an acting gong, too. Kong represents the next evolutionary step up from Gollum in Weta’s peerless splicing of performance and VFX. While the biplane-swatting and skyscraper-clambering undoubtedly impress, it’s in his facial performance and interaction with Ann (Watts, in a knock-out turn) that he truly astonishes, not least because at all times he remains vigilantly unanthropomorphized — and yet still invites sufficient emotional involvement for you to blub come the Empire State showdown. It’s as a romance that the ’05 King Kong outdoes the original hands-down, with some wonderful interludes tautening the couple’s bond to such a degree that its ultimate snapping is painful.

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Classic Movie Review: Peter Jackson’s ‘King Kong’ (2005)

Noah Pfister

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Content Caution

In Theaters

• Naomi Watts as Ann Darrow; Jack Black as Carl Denham; Adrien Brody as Jack Driscoll; Kyle Chandler as Bruce Baxter; Evan Parke as Hayes; Jamie Bell as Jimmy; Thomas Kretschmann as Captain Englehorn; Colin Hanks as Preston; Andy Serkis as Lumpy the Cook (as well as the motion-capture stand-in for King Kong)

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Positive Elements   |   Spiritual Elements   |   Sexual & Romantic Content   |   Violent Content   |   Crude or Profane Language   |   Drug & Alcohol Content   |   Other Noteworthy Elements   | Conclusion

Movie Review

Giant ape meets girl. Giant ape loses girl. Giant ape goes ballistic and escorts girl to the top of New York’s tallest skyscraper. It’s a familiar love story that gets a few new twists—including a dose of tenderness—in Peter Jackson’s rollicking, three-hour extravaganza, King Kong . Inspired by the 1933 original (the movie that lit a filmmaking fire in Jackson’s belly at age 9, as opposed to the 1976 update that didn’t ignite much of anything), the story opens with snapshots of Depression-era New York City. Shantytowns. Soup lines. Vaudeville shows. In fact, that’s where we find lovely company player Ann Darrow givin’ ’em the ol’ razzle-dazzle in a theater about to succumb to hard times.

Meanwhile, cinematic snake-oil salesman Carl Denham is desperate to get a movie made that will satisfy the angry investors he’s been stringing along. He’s heard rumors of a mysterious island that could provide the very spectacle he needs. Pressured to weigh anchor, he “discovers” the down-and-out Ann and convinces her to be his leading lady. Carl also manipulates his reluctant screenwriter, respected playwright Jack Driscoll, into making the journey. Jack and Ann hit it off, unaware that a ferocious, 8,000-pound silverback will turn their blossoming romance into a rather awkward love triangle.

When the excessively creepy natives of Skull Island sacrifice Ann as a kicking, screaming hors d’oeuvre to their hairy, chest-thumping god, the ship’s crew rushes into the jungle to rescue her, though it’s obvious Carl’s top priority is capturing the prehistoric setting on film. The search party encounters dinosaurs, enormous bugs, vicious bats and, of course, a cranky monkey who comes to appreciate Ann as more than just a late-night snack. He’s smitten. So Ann and Kong open a nice little bed-and-breakfast to give those uptight natives a place to unwind and play racquetball. (OK, I made up that last part.) Actually, what’s left of the decimated rescue team orchestrates Kong’s capture so that Carl can put him on display in the big city. All goes as planned until the beast creates chaos in his search for beauty.

Positive Elements

Ann and a fatherly actor friend look after one another, each concerned that the other is eating well. He reminds Ann of her value and urges her to chase dreams. The first mate, Hayes, is a father figure to a sailor he found as a young boy and has been mentoring ever since.

Carl pays Ann’s debt when she’s caught pilfering fruit and proceeds to buy her a meal. (He’s clearly hoping for a return on that investment, but it’s still a kind act.) Although he’s mousy and often lacks the courage of his convictions, Carl’s assistant, Preston, acts as his boss’s conscience.

Once in the jungle, men leap to one another’s aid. Jack risks life and limb on several occasions to rescue Ann. A narcissistic movie star prone to cowardice turns a corner and behaves heroically.

The softening of Kong’s heart and Ann’s increased respect for this jungle king illustrate the power of friendship, even between species. No passive damsel in distress, Ann is a strong woman who teaches Kong the meaning of beauty and pleads for the men not to hurt him. While unemployed she resists the temptation to take work with a sleazy burlesque show.

As a fish-out-of-water story, King Kong implies that what one creature calls home can be a hostile, dangerous place to another, be it the jungle or the city. The movie promotes mutual understanding as it cautions mankind not to destroy the very things that fascinate us. Director Peter Jackson told USA Today, “You realize that human beings always end up destroying the things that are mysterious and wonderful in our world. We can’t help but muck it up.”

Spiritual Elements

Saved from certain death a man utters “thank God” only to have the ship’s captain credit human initiative instead (“Don’t thank God. Thank Mr. Baxter”). The heavily pierced inhabitants of Skull Island come across as possessed savages under the influence of the occult. More than just drum-beating, Kong-worshiping followers of some quirky witchdoctor, these are oppressively dark, vicious, zombie-like natives. Many walk around with their eyes rolled back in their heads. To appease Kong they conduct human sacrifices.

Sexual & Romantic Content

Desperate for work, Ann stands in front of a burlesque theater plastered with signs reading “adults only” and photos of immodestly dressed women. To her credit she walks away, and is ready to do the same when she misinterprets a proposition by Carl as having sexual strings attached. Jack and Ann kiss passionately. One of Carl’s investors wants to know if the director’s upcoming film will feature jiggling breasts, causing Carl to call the man a low-life for even asking such a question. A stage comedy features a man in drag (context unclear).

Violent Content

Ann gets shaken up a lot when grabbed, carried and later rescued by Kong. The ape playfully knocks her around until she tells him to stop. People are attacked by prehistoric creatures, from giant mosquitoes to hungry lizards. On the island, Kong battles three T-Rexes (biting the tongue out of one and breaking its jaw), a swarm of bats, and men wielding machine guns, harpoons and knock-out gas.

During his unveiling of Kong in New York, Carl tells the crowd that the mission claimed the lives of 17 men—an understatement. A guy gets speared by natives. Another has his head chopped off out of frame, a fate also about to befall Carl until members of the ship’s crew start firing guns at the locals and kill at least one. Other doomed characters are crushed, thrown and/or bitten in two by the great ape, squashed or munched by dinos, knocked off a crumbling cliff, shaken from a log into a vast cavern, eaten alive by giant fanged worms and snatched out of the air like a bug by a mysterious creature. Just the attempt to subdue Kong finds him wildly swiping his arms, sending four or five screaming guys flying into the air. He smashes a rowboat, dispatching several more.

Kong’s tempestuous visit to Manhattan yields all sorts of property damage. Cars wreck. Buildings crumble. A theater gets demolished. Kong tosses city folk aside as if they were rag dolls, sometimes with fatal force. He stomps a man to death. He assaults a trolley car. Pilots train their machine guns on him before the agile ape destroys several biplanes. The military uses heavy artillery to try to bring him down, causing collateral damage. A bullet-riddled Kong plummets from atop the Empire State Building.

The ship’s cook tells the story of a man who ended up with “a knife in his heart.” We also see the residue of violence with lots of human skulls, rotting remains and impaled skeletons. A crewman is found dead in his cabin in a pool of blood. The boat and its passengers are battered violently by waves and rocks.

Crude or Profane Language

Exclamatory profanities range from mild (“h—” and “d–n,”) to blasphemous (six uses of “g–d–n,” several “for god’s sake” and a dozen abuses of Christ’s name). Very disappointing. A person is called a “turd,” and Carl boasts, “I’m real good at crappin’ the crappers.” A man fires off a laundry list of slang terms for women’s breasts.

Drug & Alcohol Content

Carl calms his nerves with alcohol on several occasions. Typical of films set in the 1930s, many characters smoke cigarettes. Others puff cigars. Carl prepares a pipe. Ample amounts of chloroform are used to bring down Kong.

Other Noteworthy Elements

Carl is more scurrilous (and by the end less likable) than in the original Kong. With an Ahab-like obsession, he values the film he’s making above human life. While those misplaced priorities aren’t treated as noble, this lying, scheming opportunist escapes consequences. Giant bugs, including a millipede that cozies up to Ann, may gross out some viewers. A sympathetic young man also happens to be a vandal and petty thief.

As kids growing up in the New York metropolitan area during the 1970s, my brother and I enjoyed a unique Thanksgiving Day tradition that had nothing to do with football or the Macy’s parade. Every year, a local TV station would broadcast King Kong, Son of Kong and Mighty Joe Young . In that order. Back-to-back. Since those were the days before video rentals, that annual monkey-fest was as much a part of our holiday as turkey and pumpkin pie. Why do I mention this? To give you some idea of how much I wanted to love this movie and how disappointed I was by its excesses—specifically demonic natives, abuses of Christ’s name and realistic fatalities that, in Peter Jackson’s attempt to be shockingly cool, often come across as perversely self-indulgent.

Consider that a scene featuring man-eating spiders was cut from the original Kong after members of a preview audience literally lost their lunch. It went too far. So someone at the helm back in 1933 vied for restraint. That was then, this is now. Jackson loved the notion of crewmen surviving the fall from a log into a chasm only to encounter jumbo bugs with a super-sized appetite. Newsweek ‘s Devin Gordon wrote, “Before he won a raft of Oscars for The Lord of the Rings, before he stunned the art-house crowd with the 1994 drama Heavenly Creatures , Peter Jackson, New Zealand’s favorite son, directed a series of demented, low-budget horror films that seemed designed to make people barf. Repeatedly. For Jackson, one of the biggest perks of re-creating Kong … was the chance to do his own spider-pit scene.” And what Peter wants, Peter gets.

Make no mistake, King Kong is an amazing remake. It looks great. And once it kicks into high gear, it maintains a breakneck pace. Supporting characters are colorfully drawn so that we care when they’re in danger, and the bond between Ann and Kong is unusually sweet. Even if their mutual attraction strays toward silliness near the end, the relationship has heart. That’s due in part to delightful subtleties in Kong’s personality—brought to life by actor Andy Serkis and state-of-the-art computer wizardry. The Academy might as well give Richard Taylor’s effects team the Oscar right now if only for Kong’s rampage through Manhattan and the brilliantly choreographed T-Rex battle.

King Kong will certainly sell lots of popcorn. It will also cement Jackson’s status as a 21st century Steven Spielberg, a master at creating heartfelt, effects-filled blockbusters at a time when been-there, seen-that audiences aren’t easily impressed. But what would’ve made this escapist adventure even better is a little old-fashioned restraint.

Bob Smithouser

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5 reasons why peter jackson's king kong is a brilliant example of a remake done right, 15 years after its release, jackson's film still feels deeply personal, and it features another incredible motion-capture performance from andy serkis..

(Photo by (c)Universal courtesy Everett Collection)

Remakes are double-edged swords. The best ones manage to recapture the sense of discovery we felt with the original films while offering fresh new experiences; most remakes fail to accomplish one of those two goals, and the very worst ones miss the mark on both. Before it became trendy to refashion every beloved film as a tentpole blockbuster, Peter Jackson  followed on the huge success of his Lord of the Rings trilogy with his own take on a childhood favorite, King Kong .

Jackson’s version is a gargantuan journey to a lost world using cutting-edge visual and special effects, with a story that imparts more weight to classic characters. This tale of hubris is not only a fantastic movie in its own right, but it also set a standard for blockbuster remakes that play with audiences’ familiarity with the source material and provide new perspectives on classic tales. To celebrate its 15th anniversary, we head to Skull Island explore how Peter Jackson successfully reintroduced a cinematic legend to a new generation by putting his own stamp on it.

It Feels Like a Throwback

(Photo by Universal Pictures)

After the 1976 King Kong brought its central character to a contemporary setting, Jackson took the story back to its roots as a period piece set in the 1930s. While director Merian Cooper’s  original 1933 film mostly avoided portraying the Great Depression because audiences didn’t need a reminder of what was happening around them, Jackson dove into how that environment helped birth the Kong myth. The opening scene of his film introduces the grandeur of New York’s wealth and the birth of its skyline, while giving equal gravitas to the city’s squalor; people are being served eviction notices, and soup lines extend as far as the eye can see. Not only are people desperate for money — like protagonist Ann Darrow ( Naomi Watts ), who accepts a job to shoot a film overseas with only the promise of maybe getting paid — but they are desperate to have some magic come back to the world.

Jackson grants added importance to the setting, not just in the cultural background, but also in the filmmaking landscape of the time. There are plenty of references to the original film, including a mention of original actress Fay Wray , and  Jack Black’ s character Carl Denham is also clearly meant to represent a more frustrated and unsuccessful version of Orson Welles . Jackson also takes a more old-fashioned approach to the pacing of his film, playing with audiences’ expectations and making them wait nearly an hour before finally, slowly and patiently, revealing the titular Kong.

Skull Island Feels Like a Distinct World

Even if Peter Jackson honored the original and stuck to some old-school techniques, there’s no doubt King Kong takes full advantage of every advancement in filmmaking, especially visual effects. The moment the film arrives at Skull Island, Jackson shifts gears and fully brings King Kong into horror movie territory. Sure, some of the computer-generated dinosaurs haven’t aged particularly well, but the scene when the ship’s crew falls into an insect pit — a concept Merian Cooper abandoned because it scared test audiences back in the ’30s — is utterly terrifying, especially when Lumpy (played by a human Andy Serkis , who also provided the motion capture performance for Kong himself) is devoured by an army of leeches.

The wildlife of the island not only looks great and is utilized effectively to convey a sense of wonder and horror, but the actual location looks like nothing audiences had seen to that point (except maybe in the Lord of the Rings trilogy). Skull Island feels like a place that belongs in our world, but was lost to time. The giant walls that surround the island, the temple-like architecture, and the towering mountains that loom above miles-long pits filled with giant insects lend the location a real sense of geography, capturing the mystery and adventure Carl Denham is constantly boasting about.

It Plays with Your Expectations

How do you capture the shock and awe of seeing Kong climb up the Empire State Building when everyone on Earth has either witnessed the moment themselves or seen countless parodies and homages to it for over 70 years after the original film was released? You do it by showing it from a different point of view. Just as he extends the wait before we finally meet Kong, Jackson reframes the film’s most famous set piece as a melancholy tragedy. Rather than watch the action from the perspective of the heroic airplane pilots who attempt to rescue Ann, we watch the incident unfold from Kong and Ann’s perspective, as Jackson slowly builds up the human threat to Kong before revealing the planes as if they were the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.  

King Kong doesn’t invite the audience to be awed by the prowess of the pilots or the spectacle of a 25-foot gorilla. Instead, this scene continues long enough to make you feel the sense of dread and imminent doom descending upon the titular king. The death of Kong was sad even in the original film, but it was Peter Jackson’s King Kong that finally recognized the huge tragedy of the scene and its emotional weight, and it works because it knows you are already familiar with it.

It’s Secretly About Filmmaking

Though King Kong is full of imagery and references to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and plays on the ideas of savagery and civilization, the film can easily be read as an exploration of the magic of filmmaking.

Indeed, if the original film was all about mankind’s obsession with trying to tame and control nature, Jackson’s remake is about how a filmmaker shares that same false sense of control. Carl Denham spends the first act trying to sell the idea for his movie as a public service because he’s capturing the last piece of mystery left in the world. His journey to getting the film made is arduous and long — not unlike Jackson’s own journey with the film, which he had to partially finance after it became far longer and more expensive than anticipated. But Denham’s misplaced sense of duty results in the death of most of his crew, which he tries to downplay as a noble sacrifice he’ll honor by dedicating the finished production to them. This version of Denham is a far more complex antagonist than in previous versions of the film, one that mistakes his obsession with control with artistic integrity and a sense of duty towards an audience that needs escapism.

It Features an Incredible Performance from Andy Serkis

When Andy Serkis’ Gollum first showed up in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, it was a groundbreaking moment for motion-capture performance. If Gollum was Serkis’ opening statement, however, King Kong is his mic drop moment. This Kong is neither the savage brute of the original film nor the nearly no-show from the 1976 film, but a giant who looks to the horizon with big dreams in his mind and melancholy in his heart. Serkis’ Kong sold audiences on the idea that they could watch an animal behave and act with as many expressions and as much heart as its human co-stars.

A big reason why Kong’s death at the end of the film hits so hard is because of Serkis’ characterization of him not as a monster, but as someone with a soul who connects to Ann on a deeper level than just as a plaything. Even if by the end of the film we’re supposed to connect to Ann and Adrien Brody’ s Jack, the real romance is between Ann and Kong; the two quickly connect as marginalized creatures who bond over the emptiness in their lives.

Serkis would, of course, go on to play Caesar, the chimpanzee leader of the newly evolved apes in the rebooted  Planet of the Apes franchise, in another remarkable motion-capture performance that cemented Serkis as the king of the form. But he is one of the biggest reasons Peter Jackson’s  King Kong works as well as it does, and after 15 years, his work here may still be the most compelling reason among many to revisit the film.

King Kong  was released in theaters on December 14, 2005.

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What to Know

King Kong explores the soul of a monster -- making audiences scream and cry throughout the film -- in large part due to Kong's breakthrough special effects.

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