It was beauty killed the beast

So ended the original King Kong (1933) a film that according to Peter Jackson inspired him to become a film maker. After the wild success of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Jackson decided to remake the film that inspired him. And in the end, his love for the original can not save his own version.

King Kong works in the broadest strokes. Unfortunately it already worked in the broadest strokes. The action sequences of the original were no less striking and amazing than the ones in Jackson's film, even if they were cruder and not digitally created. The major departure for Jackson, is to make the relationship of Kong and Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) more reciprocal. A nice attempt which I found fell short of impressing. Her use of acrobatics to impress his alpha male expressionism was cheesy and had me groaning.

In fact there was enough hints at Kong's savagery to make me not care what happened to him. Yes he is mesmerized by Ann, but what about the countless previous "sacrifices" who were torn from limb to limb. Not to mention all the New York women he mistakes for Ann and subsequently throws away when he recognizes his error. He is brutal, savage and in no way do I care if Ann feels anything for him. Ann and Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody) do have a slightly more realistic attraction to each other than in the original, but even it felt artificial.

Most of the acting in the film felt wooden and uninspired. From the opening moments when they were establishing Naomi Watts' character, I just didn't buy into any of it. I had my reservations from the trailer about Jack Black in this movie and I feel those reservations were warranted as I could not stand his character. Admittedly his character is supposed to be sleazy, but it was Jack Black that I couldn't stand, not the character.

Equally I don't feel the concept works in 2005. When the original was made, there was still an exoticism and mystery to the world that could be exploited for the audience. I can recognize this of the film, but the remake although still set in thirties, can not capture that same spirit. At times destruction, particularly of New York City, even in an escapist film such as this, reminded me too much of recent events. When these things are combined with an uninteresting titular character and equally uninteresting protagonists, one gets bored quickly and at three hours plus that is the death blow for a film of such a length.