I felt that King Kong was made way too long. Not sure I liked it to much. Acting was good, although (and I always say this) the content was somewhat bad, there was a lot of violence. I think Jack Black did a pretty good job on his character. Otherwise, King Kong isn't one of my favorites.

This film is a masterpiece. The special effects are of course better now than they were in 1933. It was true to the original and had its own great elements. The character development was surprising good. I didn't think the first part was slow at all. It was necessary for the character development and for building up tension for the introduction of Kong. I appreciate that Naomi Watts actually has talent like the actors and actresses of the golden age of Hollywood. She can dance, sing, even juggle. Comic actors are marvelous in dramatic roles, Jack Black did perfectly. As did Adrian Brody and others. The scariest thing in this movie is the zombie- like natives. If you rent this movie, send your kids out of the room to do water coloring during the zombie scenes. Some of the characters take the Lord's name in vain a few times which is of course unsettling and unimaginative of the writers. Other than that, hey this film is a triumph.

I cannot believe you people!! This was a fantastic movie and a lot of work went into it. The score was fantastic and beautiful and the movie is over 3 hours long----which is great because wouldn't it be boring if all movies were the same length? This movie has fabulous special effects and the last two hours are absolutely incredible! I don't know why so many of you hate this movie....It was great. I walked into the theater for one reason only-I bought the Jurassic Park trilogy and it came with a free King Kong ticket. I wouldn't have seen it otherwise so my expectations were very low and I didn't think it would be too great of a movie. Boy was I wrong. I walked out loving it and I bought the soundtrack and I will buy the 2 disc specila edition DVD the day that it comes to stores. So please, go see this movie and you absolutley should not be disappointed!!!

What a horrible piece of garbage KING WRONG is. What ever happened to character development? What ever happened to characters who behave like real people and who do and say believable, appropriate, and dare we say even moral and inspiring things? I should say that some of the acting was very good. Adrien Brody and Naomi Watts' performances were above par, but some of the dialoge they were forced to mutter and most of the actions they were directed to perform were completely laughable. For instance, KING WRONG has just killed three T-Rex dinosaurs in a completely silly and unbelievable battle, KING WRONG takes Watts' character back to his cave where bones of other large apes litter the ground, he's obviously sulking and fatigued, and all Watts' character can think to do is juggle? What the heck? And what about Watts' character teaching KING WRONG the word "beautiful" in sign language in one three-second lesson? And don't forget KING WRONG and Watts ice skating in NY after he's just destroyed a theater, smashed countless cars and other vehicles, and been shot at by the military. Are you kidding me? The plot stumbled, bumbled along with huge inexplainable gaps. For instance, how does KING WRONG beat the stuffing out of three full-grown dinosaurs yet can be restrained by less than a dozen men holding him down with a few ropes? How do they transport KING WRONG back to NY in such a small ship? How does Watts' character come walking out of the mist in a city as huge as NY right when Jackson's absurd plot needs her to after the big ape has just run all over the city? How does a kid who's never shot a gun before (not just any gun mind you, but a fully automatic machine gun, no less) shoot huge crawling bugs of another guy's face with his eyes closed and not hit the guy? And the list of ludicrousness and silliness goes on and on. Finally, why all of the offensive language? Why take the names of diety in vain so often? I don't get it. Why offend us violently and repeatedly by using names in vain that so many Christians cherish and hold dear? Frankly, I'm tired of the sick and twisted filth that Hollywood is churning out. I'm tired of all of the bloated, exaggerated, unrealistic CGI junk that is replacing good acting, believeable plots and storylines, and realistic situations. Sure, it's nice to go to a movie and be entertained, even surprised, by bigger-than-life effects, but what Jackson and so many other directors are producing resembles what adolescents do when they play and pretend and their imaginations are so unbelievable and absurd that the result is pure silliness. What a waste of time this movie was. Please don't waste your time and have your finer senses offended by sitting through this garbage.

first of all, i've been reading this colomn for over three years. dennis orgill has written several commentaries, and hasnt seen a movie he liked yet, its amazing. i'm not harrassing him, just making a subjective analysis. this movie was full of computer generated excess, but, it had to be, where do you find a 30 foot tall ape that can act? and to say it lacks subtlety is a laugher. it had so much action, so much realism, so much fun and action that i thought it was a good film. the large insects played well with the theme of the "lost" island. the islanders, though over the top, proved to be the connection to the kong. they left him sacrifice o plenty. i always stay subjective when i go to a film. i remember that it is there to be an avenue to be entertained. this film entertained me very much. i think he could have shaved a solid half hour off of it, but other than that, above average, very entertaining and fun had by all. i dont know if everyone caught the gorilla taking a bite off the head of a "runner" or not, but i find that funny, not objectionable. that should give you some insight into my humor plate. steven jackson has a new fan, he takes the large screen and fills it up visually on every level.

This is far from a great movie. I should know not to trust Jeff Vice's remarks. We do not see eye to eye on what makes a good movie. It was far too long. It was a lot more style than substance. The style was the special effects which were way too long. I felt like I was watching Jurassic Park and Raiders of the Lost Ark through them. The substance or plot was weak. The movie could have been done with in less than two hours but had to drag on for 3 hours and seven minutes. When a movie has to rely so much on special effects that tells me the plot is weak. I enjoyed Naomi Watts as Ann and her love interest. The film editing was very poor. It plodded too much. The pace of the movie needed to be quicker. Seeing this once was enough.

I give this my WOT rating (Waste of Time). There are times in the movie that it just gets ridiculous, totally unbelievable(my wife says I don't have enough imagination. Then they throw out the typical slimy bugs to shock you, for me it's just anxiety. I'm tired of special effects taking the place of content. Finally it was long, like I said WOT.

plenty of people will hate this movie.... like my lawyer friend that lives across the street, but do you really want to be like him anyway? this show may be a little bloated, but it's an experience that you shouldnt miss. it's like the first time you have an orgasm, and it hurts really bad afterwards... should you still have sex? of course! go see this movie, unless your a lawyer or a nazi...

I caught an 11pm showing of this movie after reading Jeff's review and came away feeling like I'd been robbed. I wish I'd stayed home and gone to bed early. I am left wondering if film critics are paid off because for me and the 5 others in my party we all thought the movie was extremely over rated. It was way too long. It got off to a good start and ended up O.K but the middle got so ridiculous. Don't waste your money going to see this. If you really must see it wait til it's out for a rental. To add to my disgust a couple sat infront of us with 3 young children. This is definately not suitable for small children.

Lacks subtlety. Drowns in CGI excess. Could have been great.

Ben (below) is right on. What a LAME movie. If movies are graded by special effects, this one is 4 stars for the monkey. If they're graded on on clever plots, character development, story integrity, fast and cohesive pacing and holding the audience's interest, this film is a TURKEY! I couldn't tell if I was watching Jurassic Park or King Kong. If you're going to have a gorilla, why not have big jungle animals: like snakes, lizards, monkeys, ROUSes and lions instead of stupid dinosaurs and cockroaches? (Note to Peter Jackson: someone's already done the dinosaur thing). Good Grief... this movie is terrible. Boring, full of movie making cliches, insulting to my limited inteligence (let's see... the boat leaves NYC and ends up in short order in Sumatra.... a preeminent writer is happy to work in a animal cage, the sedated animal is transported from island to dinky steamship but we're not shown how) I realize this is a remake, but this movie is not only a TURKEY, it's WAY too long, boring, stupid and horrid! The funniest thing is that we paid to see it!

Jeff, you must have watched a different King Kong then the one I went to. There were actually points in this film where I thought Kong and the leading lady might start making out. And I thought for sure Ann Darrow was going to jump right after Kong at the end. At least you could have flattened the Director at the end. I give King Kong a Turkey not just because the show is so bad but in hopes to put and end to the sfx era. I know it has its place but please don't replace the character development with a bunch of crappy expensive special effects.

I found this movie to be true to the original 1933 version of the film but the hype that was built up for this movie was far too much. I expected more from this film than it actually delivered. I agree with others that talk of the special effects, as they did lack in many areas. WETA really dropped the ball in this film here and there when it came to the special effects. Still the movie was really good and will be in my top 5 of the year behind Star Wars, Harry Potter 4, Chronicles of Narnia and Batman Begins. This movie could've been done in 2.5 hours instead of 3 hours and 10 minutes. Peter Jackson needs to realize that length isn't ALWAYS what people want when it comes to movies. Yes they worked for the Lord of the Rings movies but for this one it just didn't work as well. Oh and someone tell me how a person can shoot a bunch of cockroaches off someone else with a machine gun and not hit the person! Gimmie a break. LOL! I thought the acting was good and some classic scenes between Kong and Naomi Watts. Jack Black was really good as well and his performance in this movie will put him in the next tier of Hollywood actors. Peter Jackson shows he is a genius when it comes to film making but he also shows that he is capable of making mistakes as well as any honest person will attest to after seeing this film. It's not perfect by any means but it was a noble effort nonetheless. It's probably a movie that I will only see once in the theaters but will buy when it comes out on DVD. Oh and please don't bring young kids to this movie!! I got tired of hearing all the crying from the little kids while watching this movie. I wouldn't let any kid under 10 see this movie...and that's being generous. This is a HARD PG-13 movie. (Oh and was that Shelob from Return of the King in this movie?) Ha ha!

3 stars. This was a good movie but not as good as I thought it was going to be. I think people will force themselves to like this movie because it is a "Peter Jackson movie" and he did such an amazing job on the LOTR movies. My biggest disappointment in this movie was the special effects (sfx). Don't get me wrong, there were some GREAT sfx but there were 7 or 8 scenes where the sfx were absolutely awful. The worst was the "brontosaurus stampede." First of all it was totally unrealistic that hardly anybody got trampled with all these dinos running right over them. Then you add some of the worst sfx for that particular scene and you have one of hollywoods worst scenes in a LONG TIME! Then the "pole vaulting tribal guy" was very choppy and not real looking at all. There were other areas where it was pretty bad as well. The reason I bring up the sfx is cuz I know many people will say that the sfx were "amazing" and some of the best that they've seen. Not true in my opinion. Also, it was a little long in some areas (PJ needs to fire his editor for this movie for letting some of the scenes go too long.) Now, let me say the story was very well done for the most part. I really liked how he portrayed King Kong. You really felt for him when he died at the end. Jack Black is probably the best character in the movie...he had some great one liners in the movie. He also had the stupidest line in the movie as well, "No! It was beauty that killed the beast!" (Oh brother!) But I would recommend this movie but would not say it's the best movie of the year. If you are going back and forth between King Kong or Chronicles or Narnia or Harry Potter 4...go see the latter 2 and wait on King Kong. If this movie makes more money then ANY of the LOTR films it will be a total shame. (Of course it only made 9.7 million on opening day when they expected close to 100 million on opening day.)

First of all, due to the violence this movie should have been rated a solid R. True there was no blood, but that the disdain for human life in this film was unforgivable. The CGI gorilla in this movie was astounding. Kudos to the designers. King Kong was every bit as realistic as the live actors. My problem with the movie was the shameful attempt at telling a story. A movie, is nothing more than a continuation of a long history of story telling in the human race. True, we are wowed by special effects that enhance a story, but in this film, it was all about the former. The storyline was slow, unimaginative, disconnected from itself, and just plain boring. The first hour was almost interesting, the second almost got somewhere and the final hour was sheer torture. And the many misfired attempts at humor certainly did not help the situation. What did I like? The acting was quite good but this movie still qualifies as a Thanksgiving dish: TURKEY! : >