This review is spoiler free except a brief hint of the ending in the last paragraph. If you happen to not know the ending of the original King Kong then quit reading when you come to the line I put to separate the first part of the review from the last paragraph.

Ever since I heard that Peter Jackson was making King Kong I have been excited about seeing it. It is not that I am a big King Kong fan…I’ve seen the originals several times as a child and enjoyed them for what they were…but the Lord of the Rings trilogy has made me a big fan of Peter Jackson. Not only did he manage to pull together a team that created the most amazing looking film ever , but the passion for film making that he showed in every frame of the DVD extras of all three films made a believer out of me. The King Kong trailers did nothing but increase my expectations for this film…and it rocked!

The only 2 complaints I read on internet sites prior to seeing the film were that it was a) too long, and b) that Peter Jackson should not have made this film. As to B, I personally think people are ridiculous. If a director has a passion for something and can find a studio to back it then why not make it. As to the length…well there is no denying it is a long film. Three hours and change. But too long? Not by a long shot. Yes, it takes awhile to get you to the monkey but by the time its over you don’t remember the wait at all.

The Special Effects: They are HUGE! WETA’s work with Kong makes Aslan in Narnia look like I drew it with crayons. It is that good. Before you get a good look at Kong you get to see some dinosaurs and they look very good and then you get that first close up face shot of Kong and your are blown away. What makes the Kong so impressive as a digital character is the way that WETA is able to convey emotion through the character. WETA has a track record of course with the Golem character but Golem was also able to talk and the voice tone and inflection go a long way towards giving the character emotion. There are numerous moments in Kong where the emotion is conveyed with only a look and how they were able to get depth and feeling and emotion out of those big brown digital eyes is way beyond my comprehension. I sat in awe! The digital King Kong character gave a better performance than 90% of the human actors/actresses I’ve seen in films this year.

The other effects are very good as well. The early century New York sets and they jungle settings are no doubt filled with visual effects shots and they are amazing as well. Peter Jackson and the WETA crew did a wonderful job of recreating depression era New York City as well as a lush Frank Frazetta-ish jungle setting on Skull Island. The entire movie was a visual feast, especially if you love classic swashbuckling monster movies. It is apparent with every frame that Peter Jackson truly loves the subject matter and this is an amazing tribute to the legacy of King Kong.

The Actors/Actresses: Great choices all around. Naomi Watts was a perfect choice to fill the role of Ann Darrow immortalized by Fay Wray in the original 1933 production. She is attractive enough to play the starlet role and yet not so glamorous as to be distracting…and she does an amazing job. The scenes between Ann Darrow and King Kong are wonderful and the emotional connection she is able to convey with a character who was not physically there during filming is powerful and amazing. Adrien Brody plays the unassuming playwright turned hero Jack Driscoll very convincingly and Jack Black was fantastic. There was a great deal of speculation as to whether or not he would be able to reign in his crazy energy enough to play the role of Carl Denham without making it over-the-top…and he nailed it. He is just greedy and self-serving enough to be the kind of character who looks to make a profit off of everyone but not so one-dimensionally bad that you hate him. You dislike him, but you can also understand him because he represents the worst in all of us and the excesses we see all around us in society today. Andy Serkis not only has a really fun role in the film but does a phenomenal job as Kong. I cannot wait to see the behind-the-scenes stuff with him. The rest of the cast was terrific. Keep an ear open early for a fun reference to Fay Wray and the original King Kong and look closely at the conductor of the orchestra towards the end of the film. Is that Howard Shore? Shore was the original person working on the film score but was replaced by James Newton Howard 7 weeks before the film was to be completed. It sure does look like Howard Shore but they never show him close enough to be entirely sure. There are also cameos by Peter Jackson and other LOTR/WETA producers, etc, mostly as gunners in the airplanes but I did not notice them and only read about it in my research for this review.

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Overall this is a great film. It looks absolutely stunning and the performances by real and digital characters are outstanding. Keep in mind that this is not an epic story like Lord of the Rings. At its heart it is still essentially a monster movie but Jackson takes a good deal of time to give the characters life and backstories in the first third of the movie and to me this adds extra dimension to the scale of this film. The bonding scene between Ann Darrow and Kong is amazing as are there other emotionally charged scenes throughout the film. Being essentially a tragedy I left the theatre feeling the same way I did when Frodo turned back and decided to keep the ring…I felt like someone had punched me in the gut…hard. Tori did not know how the original King Kong ended and she was affected by how sad it was. The end scene is so incredibly powerful and makes the time invested completely worthwhile. I am so thrilled with the end result of Peter Jackson’s latest film and look forward to hearing your thoughts, positive or negative. In the end this is a must-see film. See it on the biggest screen possible as it is overwhelming! Great, great job and well worth the wait!

Although C. S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia have been a part of the public consciousness since before I was born I myself did not read them until 5 or 6 years ago. I ended up re-reading some of the books to my daughter and am really familiar with The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. I have to admit that I was somewhat worried that the movie would not live up to my expectations but I needn’t have been. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe was every bit as good as the trailers indicated.

I make it a habit to stay away from reviews until after I have seen a movie mostly because I do not want anything to be spoiled for me but since I knew this story well I occasionally looked at forums to see what the rumors were. The most frequently discussed topic seemed to be whether or not the special effects would meet people’s expectations. Could WETA, who made motion picture history with The Lord of the Rings trilogy, do it again? One of the things that helped with the realism of the digital characters in LOTR is that the color palette of the movie was darker which helped digital and real characters blend together in the scene. LW2 was a much bolder, brighter movie and I must say WETA did a wonderful job. The crowning achievement of the movie was, of course, Aslan and he looked incredible. Every hair on his mane was lifelike and realistic. It was marvelous. The other creatures inhabiting Narnia were terrific as well. I especially enjoyed the beavers. The other unknown was how a group of relatively unknown child actors would do with such a beloved classic tale.

Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes, Anna Popplewell, and William Moseley played Lucy, Edmund, Susan and Peter Pevensie. The four Pevensie children are wisked away to Professor Kirke’s country estate to protect them from London air raids during WWII. While there young Lucy stumbles across a wardrobe during a game of hide and seek through which she enters the magical world of Narnia. This is truly one of my favorite moments in both the book and the film. Lucy is the Pevensie child that I enjoy the most and Georgie Henley did a wonderful job of conveying the innocence and awe of a child whose imagination is at its peak. I love the scenes between her and Mr. Tumnus (played terrifically by James McAvoy). Lucy and Mr. Tumnus talking over tea and toast is just such a comforting scene. The other actors/actresses did well also. Edmund was just dislikable enough to believe that he would do the selfish things he does and yet not so much as to cause the viewer to write off the character. Anna Popplewell did a great job of conveying the fact that Susan is at that uncomfortable age between childhood and adulthood and does not feel confident in either role. William Moseley’s Peter was played just right…brave enough to do what needed to be done to protect his family but no so brave as to look superhero-ish. My favorites next to Georgie Henley (Lucy) and James McAvoy (Mr. Tumnus) was Jim Broadbent as Professor Kirke. The scenes between the professor and the children were terrific and I wish he could’ve factored into the story more. A number of people left the theatre at the “end” of the movie only to miss the very poignant moment between Lucy and the Professor. For me that scene alone made the whole movie wonderful.

In the few negative reviews that LW2 has garnered the most common complaint is either the “preachiness” of the story or that it was just too simplistic. My response to that is these reviewers must have not read the book as the movie stays very close to the letter and spirit of the novel. C. S. Lewis was very open about the religious allegory in these stories and yet they are written (and the movie was filmed) in such a way that you can read into them whatever you like. The story is very simple on some levels but one must remember it was a story written in the 50’s for children. Some reviewers complained about the violence being glossed over and dumbed down to get a PG rating but the fact of the matter is that it played out onscreen like it does in the books. There are not long, bloody accounts of the battle in the book. It is presented in such a way to be understandable and palatable for young children. I admire the fact that they stayed true to the spirit of the book and didn’t try to amp up the violence, etc. to make the movie more appealing to the LOTR crowd. There is just the right amount of humor, adventure, magic and suspense to appeal to the whole family. Despite the PG rating there are some scenes, the one at the stone table for example, that are fairly dark with scary creatures that may frighten some young children.

Reading the books as an adult the thing that struck me the most was the idea of these children living out full lives in Narnia and then suddenly being brought back to the here and now only moments after they left. It is a somewhat haunting idea that brings with it a bit of melancholy. Although his onscreen time was brief I see this melancholic longing for Narnia in the attitude of the professor. The books/movie give the idea that the knowledge of Narnia fades into a dreamlike quality (as does the real world when you are in Narnia) which somewhat explains how a person could go back to living a “normal” life after years of living and ruling in a magical realm but the whole idea has always been somewhat sad and fascinating for me. To me the idea is akin to the occasional longing for childhood one can experience at different times in life.

Overall I found the movie to be a wonderful experience and while it doesn’t come close to replacing the Lord of the Rings films in my affections it is a marvelous cinematic rendering of a beloved classic children’s tale.