steve kwan user experience designer

Review: King Kong

(December 19th, 2005 - 2:27PM)

Monkey vs Dinosaur. Picture shamelessly borrowed from Roger Ebert.

(4 / 5 stars)

One sentence summary: The most beautiful tale of bestial love you will ever see.

I went to see this beast of a movie with Richard, Victor and Jowen. Richard is an old friend of mine. The other two are "new."

When I first heard that Peter Jackson was making a King Kong movie several months back, I was a little skeptical. After all, it's a movie about a gigantic monkey. Regardless of the directing, acting and CGI quality, can a movie with such a silly plot really be good? I'm reminded of Hulk, a movie with a great cast and crew, but which ultimately sucked because it was a movie about a giant green guy. Can Peter Jackson take such an unbelievable concept as King Kong and make it into a believable movie?

Yes, yes he can.

Andy Serkis, the actor who brought Gollum to life with his body language in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, lends his mime capabilities to King Kong. The monkey looks really believable.

This movie's real success is its ability to capture the relationship between Kong and Naomi Watts. I'm not sure how exactly they accomplished this. I suspect it's a combination of good directing, good acting and good CGI. The premise of a gorilla in love with a woman is somewhat unbelievable, but this movie makes it believable. That's what makes it so great.