New York Daily News - Kong Review
Dec. 14th, 2005 01:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shipperxReview:
Peter Jackson's "King Kong" is the most thrilling, soulful monster picture ever made. At last, it can be said without irony - I laughed, I cried.
Oh, how I cried. The sequence in which the 25-foot beast and Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts), the blond actress he adores, slide together on a frozen pond in Central Park is one of the most innocently romantic moments ever put to film.
"King Kong" is also scary. And funny. It's everything people have ever wanted from the movies - action, romance, surprise, plus every monster menace you can buy for a budget north of $200 million. In addition to a roaring, snorting Kong, there's a stampede and deadly pileup of prehistoric dinosaurs, plus spiders and creepy-crawlies of every degree of bloodthirsty.
In short, it's brilliant.
The gorilla of the original 1933 horror pic and its campy 1976 remake was occasionally to be pitied - poor thing, in love with a screeching blond! But this Kong is an awesome creature: magisterial, melancholy, tender. When he loves, he loves completely and selflessly. Ann Darrow is a lucky woman.
Kong turns in the most moving performance of the year, even if it's against the rules to give an Oscar to something that's equal parts CGI, movie wizardry and the facial expressions of Andy Serkis, the actor who made "Lord of the Rings'" Gollum so devilishly complex.
Jackson slips in clever, sneaky commentary on the nature and ethics of the entertainment biz, particularly the film industry - whose box-office "King Kong" is poised to conquer the minute he's let loose in theaters next week.
Peter Jackson's "King Kong" is the most thrilling, soulful monster picture ever made. At last, it can be said without irony - I laughed, I cried.
Oh, how I cried. The sequence in which the 25-foot beast and Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts), the blond actress he adores, slide together on a frozen pond in Central Park is one of the most innocently romantic moments ever put to film.
"King Kong" is also scary. And funny. It's everything people have ever wanted from the movies - action, romance, surprise, plus every monster menace you can buy for a budget north of $200 million. In addition to a roaring, snorting Kong, there's a stampede and deadly pileup of prehistoric dinosaurs, plus spiders and creepy-crawlies of every degree of bloodthirsty.
In short, it's brilliant.
The gorilla of the original 1933 horror pic and its campy 1976 remake was occasionally to be pitied - poor thing, in love with a screeching blond! But this Kong is an awesome creature: magisterial, melancholy, tender. When he loves, he loves completely and selflessly. Ann Darrow is a lucky woman.
Kong turns in the most moving performance of the year, even if it's against the rules to give an Oscar to something that's equal parts CGI, movie wizardry and the facial expressions of Andy Serkis, the actor who made "Lord of the Rings'" Gollum so devilishly complex.
Jackson slips in clever, sneaky commentary on the nature and ethics of the entertainment biz, particularly the film industry - whose box-office "King Kong" is poised to conquer the minute he's let loose in theaters next week.
