Movie Review: King Kong

Set in the 1930s, this is the story of a young and beautiful actress Ann Darrow from the world of vaudeville who finds herself lost in depression-era New York and her luck changes when she meets an over-ambitious filmmaker Carl Denham who brings her on an exploratory expedition to a remote island where she finds compassion and the true meaning of humanity with an ape Kong. The beauty and the beast finally meet their fate back in the city of New York where the filmmaker takes and displays the ape in quest of his fame by commercial exploitation which ultimately leads to catastrophe for everyone including a playwright Jack Driscoll who falls in love with Ann and plays an unlikely hero by trying to save her from Kong and her destiny.


First, I will admit that I have never seen the original King Kong or any other remake, except the one that just came out.

Overall, the movie was very well done with excellent display of emotion and tension. Kong is not present in the first half of the movie, which is actually a good thing since the director took his time getting all the characters in motion and slowly made you believe that dinosaurs still walking about aren't THAT hard to believe.

Once Kong is in the picture, some parts are poorly executed. First of all, any human being would have had their neck and spine shattered into at least 17 different locations with the way Kong was handling the tour through the jungle. Just a note to all the big apes that saw the movie and would like to replicate Kong: Don't hold a woman in the same hand that you use to run through the forest. Constant pounding into the ground will cause many a fans to look elsewhere for their forest adventures.

Anyways, the "bond" between Ms. Ann Darrow and Mr. Kong is very well done. You truly feel sorry for the big ape throughout the entire movie. His facial expressions are well animated, although some of his insane movements are a bit tacky.

The best part, in my humble opinion, is Kong's fight with three T-Rexs. In most movies, the T-Rex is the big daddy and no one f***s with this guy. Kong, out of his endless admiration for Ann, saves her life and proceeds to dislocated the jaws of the T-Rex family line.

Watching that part and saying OHHH, WOWWW, OUCHH, SHIT! I thought to myself, how in the world is this movie rated PG-13?!?!!?!? Someone paid quite a lot of money to the advisory board to bring the rating down to PG-13. There was a 10 year old next to me that looked like he was scarred for life. Sure, there were no sex scenes or cussing, but kids really shouldn't be watching a big ape rip out the tongue of a T-Rex then dislocate his jaw and crush his skull.

Maybe I'm just being old-fashioned.

Overall, 4/5 stars. It's long (3+ hours), but time flies when a big gorilla is involved and you watch the movie with the love of your life, as I did)

Favorite Quote:
Lumpy the Cook: [seeing a footprint that Kong has left] There's only one thing in the world that could have done this... the Abominable Snowman.

IMDB Page for King Kong