Last night was the first opportunity that Carmen and I felt we could spare the three hours necessary to view Peter Jackson’s latest blockbuster film, his remake of the classic 1933 film King Kong.    It’s a colossal film, much in the same visual style of Jackson’s earlier Lord of the Rings trilogy, with many big, sweeping vistas, extended action sequences and a fair amount of just just showing off.

It’s a good film, mind you, but it is just a bit much at times.   It’s not actually boring, but you can see that there are entire scenes, entire plotlines, entire subtexts that really aren’t very central to the story.  We’d expect that in Lord of the Rings, where the plotlines and subtexts are really part of the joy of the story, but they aren’t really necessary in King Kong, and actually seem a bit like showboating: “I’m Peter Jackson, and I’m adding an hour of footage just because I’m Peter Jackson“.

By way of example, consider the roles of Hayes and Jimmy (played by actors Evan Parke and Jamie Bell).  They are crew members on the boat, and Jackson spends a fair amount of time creating a level of backstory for these characters, yet in the end, there is no real payoff: the role that the characters play is entirely incidental to even the secondary plotlines of the film.

Then, consider the extended “brontosaurus and raptor stampede”.  The only thing that really accomplishes is we get to see a lot of extras (in the Star Trek universe, all these guys would have red shirts) get trampled by CG dinosaurs, while the major characters somehow karate kick their way to safety.

The spider pit is a bit over the top as well, and again only serves to thin the heard of red shirts.   If any of these scenes were incompetently done, they’d really detract from the movie, but even though they are well done, I think as a whole the movie feels a bit self-concious and over the top.

I also thought that there were some continuity problems: the natives initially are protrayed as brutal savages, and yet somehow after the initial encounter, they are nowhere to be seen.   Other, more minor discountinuities seemed to jar me at 20 minute intervals.

Still, overall I’d rank it about a B+.   It delivers a lot of what you expect, even if it is a bit slow out of the gate, it keeps you interested and excited.  Naomi Watts does a great job as Ann Darrow, and while I think that Jack Black was reaching a bit beyond his grasp, he did a credible job as movie producer Carl Denham.  Adrien Brody takes what is essentially a pretty minor role as Jack Driscoll, Denham’s screenwriter, but looks great on screen, and gives a good performance with minor motivation.

It’s kind of gruesome in spots, you might wish to consider carefully whether to take younger kids.