"King" sized movie

What do you get when you cross Titanic, Cannibal Holocaust, Jurassic park and The Lost World? You would find a humongous ape jumping out of the pot right into your face! That is what Peter Jackson's "King Kong" is all about. You find yourself trapped in the theater waiting for the first one and half hours of this 3 hour long epic waiting to capture a glimpse of the great ape but alas! By the time you actually get to see the huge primate half the movie is over. The story moves at a fast pace once Kong makes an entry. The movie is staged in the depression era (late 1920's) with a movie director trying desperately to make it big. With the movie producers deciding to cut his finances he manages to get aboard a steamer along with his crew to shoot the remainder of his movie in an uncharted island somewhere in the pacific. The heroine is a theater artist who lost her job thanks to the closure of the theater because of the depression. We also have a writer in the crew who falls for the heroine. The initial scenes look as though they were inspired from Titanic but the CGI is a lot better. Once on the island we have a very fearful looking aborigines (They would make the Ogres from Lord of the Rings trilogy feel good about their looks!) who take a peculiar liking to the heroine and want to offer her as a sacrifice to the Kong. Rest is all about how the writer rescues her and how the crew capture Kong and take him back to New York. Dinosaurs keep popping in and out of the scenes interlaced with giant slimy bugs who eat away people. Kong even does Kung-fu! (A choreographed action sequence between the King Kong and three T-Rexs). Jack Black, who plays the director in the movie provides some comic relief with his efforts to keep the camera and the reel intact through the film. Adrian Brody and Naomi Watts deliver good performances even though the movie is not supposed to be an actor-based one.

I could never figure out since I first saw the 1970s version of the King Kong on TV as to why there was only one King Kong! Was the great ape looking at the heroine like a doll to play with? I wonder if the Kong being protective about the heroine was just getting angry at anyone who wanted to his doll away. The movie could have been edited to stretch just over a couple of hours. The cinematography was excellent. The back ground score took its hints from the emotional weight the scenes carried. Adrian Brody was perfect and none else could have been a better choice for the role of Ann. But at the end you just get a feeling that you are watching a montage of various movies and not an original. I saw the movie specifically because it was a Peter Jackson movie. Peter Jackson, in my point of view has been the most successful director in recent time who made a trilogy, the best in recent times, where each part was better than its predecessor. I expected better story and logic from this New Zealander but sad to say he disappointed! If you forget about Jackson's previous track record and feel that movies are just for entertainment and defy logic and you are supposed to see things in the movies which you don't get to see in reality then King Kong is for you!

Some of the best scenes of the movie: The ship running ashore, The encounter of the film crew with the aborigines and the subsequent sacrifice scene (The most terrifying scene of all), The dinosaurs running helter skelter with the Raptors chasing them, Heroine performing her act in front of Kong, King Kong chasing the taxi near the climax and finally the scenes where King Kong beats his chest atop the Empire State Building. Everything about the movie is large ... The characters, the animals, the canvas and finally the ape itself!