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King Kong

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Naomi Watts

Adrien Brody

Jack Black

Andy Serkis

Colin Hanks

Thomas Kretschmann

Jamie Bell

Kyle Chandler

Evan Parke

Lobo Chan

John Sumner

Craig Hall

Peter McKenzie

William Johnson

David Pittu

Mark Hadlow

Geraldine Brophy

David Dennis

Pip Mushin

Jim Knobeloch

Ric Herbert

Lee Donahue

Tom Hobbs

Tiriel Mora

Jed Brophy

John Wraight

Will Wallace

Frank Edwards

Crawford Thomson

Richard Kavanagh

Stephen Hall

Joe Folau

Chic Littlewood

Samuel Taylor

Lorraine Ashbourne

Laura Surrich

Katie Jackson

Michael Lawrence

Ray Woolf

Eddie Campbell

Greg Smith

Phil Grieve

Matt Wilson

Jim McLarty

Latham Gaines

Camille Keenan

Peter Jackson

Billy Jackson

Jack Machiela

Frank Darabont

Matt Dravitzki

John Hubbard

Jan Blenkin

Carolynne Cunningham

Brent Burge

David Farmer

James Newton Howard

Liz Mullane

Grant Major

Mel Wesson

Victoria Burrows

Dan Hubbard

Andrew Lesnie

David Long

Jamie Selkirk

Fran Walsh

Terry Ryan

Philippa Boyens

Sally Eccleston

Mana Hira Davis

Clint Elvy

Tony Marsh

Andrew Stehlin

Min Windle

Sharon Maxwell

Shane Rangi

Morgan Evans

Amanda Foubister

Jonathan Costelloe

Kirk Maxwell

Winham Hammond

Baz Karbouris

Jason Tahu

Tim Wong

Mark Trotter

Sebastian Foxx

David J. Muzzerall

Steve Reinsfield

Joel Fletcher

Hugo Dominguez

Sean Button

Richard Taylor

Guy Williams

Armen Ksajikian

Chris Hennah

Shona McCullagh

Victoria Sullivan

Joe Bleakley

Simon Bright

Merrin Ruck

Kristie Breslin

Carolyn M. Fenton

Gunner Ashford

Eliza Godman

Peter Swords King

Steven Boyle

Peter Mills

Shane Dawson

Rodney Cook

Steve Ingram

John Simpson

Dave Whitehead

Justin Webster

George Murphy

Hayden Collow

Melanie Graham

Tom Johnson

Katy Wood

Craig Tomlinson

Ann Robinson

Ben Snow

Erik Winquist

Greg Cockerill

Annette Wullems

Eileen Moran

Dan Hennah

Jeremy Bennett

Genevieve Cooper

Simon Ward

Kevin Anderton

Ben Hall

Julie Adams

Dan Lemmon

Andy Buckley

Peter Russell

Stephen Crene

Carl Bellavia

Colin Davidson

Pierre Vinet

Andy McLaren

Shane Cooper

Ed Mulholand

Simon Harding

Collin Butrum

Ray Beentjes

They just couldn't leave him on his island could they...

King Kong is directed by Peter Jackson and Jackson co-writes the screenplay with Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens. It's based on a story by Merian C. Cooper and Edgar Wallace. It stars Naomi Watts, Jack Black, Adrien Brody, Thomas Kretschmann, Colin Hanks, Andy Serkis, Evan Parke, Jamie Bell and Kyle Chandler. Music is by James Newton Howard and cinematography by Andrew Lesnie.

After completing the hugely successful Lord of the Rings trilogy, Peter Jackson turned his attentions to a reimaging of that daddy of classic creature features, King Kong. With all the new tools of the trade to hand, Jackson set about making a Kong film full of love and respect the original from 1933, whilst obviously making his own beast as it were. Story remains the same, mankind sets off to a fabled place known as Skull Island, there they find beasties not of this world, not least a gigantic mountain of a gorilla. They stupidly bring him back to America for money making exercises and things go really bad. The End.

I have personally found it most interesting re-watching the film nearly 15 years since its release, especially given we have not long had a different Kong reboot with "Kong: Skull Island" in 2017. For the differences, for better or worse depending on your proclivities in Kongdom, are enormous. Kong: Skull Island is a no brain adventure yarn, high on action but low on intelligence, but it does know it. Jackson's Kong aspired to be much more cerebral, and for the most part it achieves it. Sadly it takes a whopping 3 hours to reveal its intentions, which was a problem to many back in 2005, and is still a hindrance sitting down to watch it these days - this even knowing and preparing once again for how long it is. Frustratingly there's a great film in the mix just crying out for an hour of extraneous filler and clunky dialogue to be jettisoned. 

Once set up has been achieved in the first hour, we finally get to Skull Island and it's an absolute technical treat. The look is fantastic, the turn of events as Kong and his acolytes have been introduced is terrific. From here it's creature feature mayhem, the beauty and the beast aspect kicks into gear, and it's all very comforting, thrilling even - with one exception. A dinosaur stampede looks ridiculous, the blend of human actors and CGI is so poor it belies the money spent on the effects for this production. That aside, though, the action sequences are electric, particularly the monster mash ups. Yet the quite reflective periods on Skull Island really strike a chord as well, just sections where Kong and Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) are chilling out together, taking in the landscape that money mad men want to take Kong away from...

Then it's back to The States and carnage ensues, culminating in a brilliantly staged last quarter of film, where all that superb period detail gets obliterated during the battle between man and beast, and where even now I'm rooting for Kong to win! As the tenderness of the Beauty and the Beast arc subsides - and it is beautiful - it's then that you once again know that Jackson was too indulgent. His cast were on form, Serkis as Kong a revelation, this is a great picture at times, a real treat in High Definition, if only someone had fronted him up to not over indulge. For then we might have a 9/10 movie as opposed to a bloated 7/10 one.

05 is the worst of the Kong movies, mainly because it tries to do way too much. It tries to be epic, and because it tries to be epic it drags. DRAGS.

Watching through it, there is about an hour and a half that I would cut, mostly because it's not necessary for a movie like this. There was character development... but too much of it. There was plot, but too much of it.

If the movie was trimmed down with an eye to making it flow, it would have been decent. But instead they let it run too long with with not enough happening in it to be an exciting monster movie.

The result was kind of a drag.

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Naomi Watts

Adrien Brody

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Kyle Chandler

Evan Parke

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