King Kong (2005)

My film-nut daughter and I spent three and a half quality hours in the movie theater this weekend watching Peter Jackson's remake of King Kong. The film is enjoyable and refreshing, which is suprising since everyone knows how the movie is going to end.

My only gripe was that the film could have cut a good 15 minutes out of the beginning of the movie. I appreciated the fact that they were trying to layer in character depth to the story, but when you're waiting for them to reach the island and meet Kong, all of that stuff really felt longer than was comfortable. Perhaps it was like watching water boil... you know it'll boil eventually, but time seems to slow while you're waiting.

The special effects and choregraphy of the action sequences are pretty amazing. The computer recreation of 1930's New York was visually impressive as well. And the emotional connection between Kong and the damsel in distress, Naiomi Watts, was very effective. Plus, the technology they used to create Kong is groundbreaking. They attached 150 sensors to an actor which fed a computer and created the animation of Kong in real time. I'm sure they fine tune the animation in post production, but the technology itself is great stuff.

Its a worthy of film and you should check it out if you can.