King Kong (***1/2)

Peter Jackson's Kong is filmmaking on as big a scale as it gets. This movie is mind-blowingly awesome at times, and downright hokey and amateurish in others. It's the work of a filmmaker so in love with his source material that he has blinders on to the rest of the world. He's not thinking with a clear mind. On one level, that works out great for the movie. The scenes on Skull Island and in New York City have great rush and fervor. Jackson captures the imagination of all of our inner 9-year olds with truly breathtaking scenes: a brotosaurus pile-up, a swinging T-Rex fight, and the eventual Empire State Building climax. On another level, however, the movie is too long by about a half hour. I'd even venture to say that the first hour of the film is horrible. It was kind of inert, and felt like Jackson was just killing time. Had Jackson been thinking clearly, he could have edited the movie tighter, cut the "Jimmy" storyline, and focused more on the heart of the story: Kong and Ann. That being said, King Kong succeeds enormously in what it should have: the character of Kong, as performed by Andy Serkis and digitally realized by the geniuses at Weta, is memorable, realistic, and moving. Naomi Watts is fantastic and a definite Best Actress contender for her work here. She makes you believe that Kong is real, and she allows us all to invest in their relationship and in Kong himself. Their scenes together are the best in the film, and the ending is as emotional as it should be. King Kong is passionate filmmaking in every sense of the word. It's by no means perfect, but you'll definitely get your money's worth. See this on the big screen.