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King Kong
2005
It is 1933, and vaudeville actress Ann Darrow (Oscar nominee Naomi Watts) has found herself - like so many other New Yorkers during the Great Depression - without the means to earn a living. Unwilling to compromise and allow herself to sink into a career in burlesque, she considers her limited options while aimlessly wandering .. Read more
| Starring | Naomi Watts, Adrien Brody, Jack Black, Colin Hanks |
|---|---|
| Director | Peter Jackson |
| Genres | Action/Adventure |
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King Kong
It is 1933, and vaudeville actress Ann Darrow (Oscar nominee Naomi Watts) has found herself - like so many other New Yorkers during the Great Depression - without the means to earn a living. Unwilling to compromise and allow herself to sink into a career in burlesque, she considers her limited options while aimlessly wandering the streets of Manhattan. When her hunger drives her to unsuccessfully try to steal an apple from a fruit vendor's stall, she is rescued - literally - by filmmaker and multiple hyphenate Carl Denham (Jack Black).
It seems that the entrepreneur-raconteur-adventurer is no stranger to theft, having that day lifted the only existing print of his most recent and unfinished film from under his studio executives' noses when they threatened to pull his completion funds. Carl has until the end of the day to get his crew onboard the Singapore-bound tramp steamer, the S.S. Venture, in hopes of completing his travelogue/action film. With that, the showman is certain he will finally achieve the personal greatness he knows awaits him around the corner - and although the crew believe that corner to be Singapore, Denham actually hopes to find and capture on film the mysterious place of legend: Skull Island.
Unfortunately for Carl, his headlining actress has pulled out of his project, but his search for a size-four leading lady (the costumes have all been made) has, fatefully, led him to Ann. The struggling actress is reluctant to sign on with Denham, until she learns that the up-and-coming, socially relevant playwright Jack Driscoll (Oscar winner Adrien Brody) is penning the screenplay - the fees his friend Carl pays for potboiling adventure are a welcome supplement to Driscoll's nominal income from his stage plays.
With his newly discovered star and coerced screenwriter reluctantly onboard, Denham's 'moving picture ship' heads out of New York Harbor... and toward a destiny that none aboard could possibly foresee...
| Starring | Naomi Watts, Adrien Brody, Jack Black, Colin Hanks, Kyle Chandler, Thomas Kretschmann, Andy Serkis |
|---|---|
| Director | Peter Jackson |
| Studio | UNIVERSAL PICTURES UK |
| Run time | DVD: 2 hrs 59 mins Blu-ray: 3 hrs 12 mins |
| Certificate | |
| Genres | Action/Adventure |
| Language | DVD: English Blu-ray: English |
| Hearing-impaired | English |
| Subtitles | DVD: Arabic, Icelandic |
| Released | DVD: 10 Apr 2006 Blu-ray: 09 Mar 2009 Production year: 2005 |
| Format | DVD |
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Critics' reviews (3)
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A witty comment on the darkness at the heart of adventure stories, a bazillion-dollar spectacle that reserves the right to question the morality of spectacles, and, mostly, a tender love story about a melancholy girl and her tragically misunderstood monkey
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Jackson succeeds through a combination of modesty and reckless glee, topping himself at every turn and reveling in his own showmanship
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Most helpful member's review
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44 out of 52 people found this review helpful
It Wasn't the Planes...
Greenery, and green-screenery, abound in Peter Jackson't latest offering. It's good - great, even - but if it's the best film you've ever seen you need to stay in more.
I was amazed that after the relatively seamless LotR trilogy, that it was easy to spot some of the joins in the SFX, and the lack of detail in the storyline had me a bit frustrated. The answer to just how they got Kong on that boat all the way back to New York remains a mystery. And towards the end I was a little tired of the CGI-spectacular and wished just get up that damned building so we could get on to the foregone conclusion.
But despite my above whinges, I actually really enjoyed Kong. Well worth spending 3 hours of your life on, but I'd strongly recommend you try and see it in a cinema with good sound, or at the very least wait for the DVD release to watch it on a rich mate's great big sound system - certainly the pirates from the pub could never do this movie justice.
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- RJTaylor from Manchester
- Posted 04 Jan 2006 14:03
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Most recent members' review
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1 out of 1 person found this review helpful
Enjoyable, if somewhat long.
Peter Jackson has certainly spent the time and effort on this one. 'Special FX fatique' is sometimes a problem though. In some of the Skull Island scenes, several of the CGI action sequences seemed overly long and thereby lost much of their impact.
On the other hand, the recreation of 1930's New York is truly astounding.
There does seem to be gaps in the story in places - for example the outward sea voyage is 'well documented' but then there's nothing about what must have been a difficult return to civilisation on the return trip.
But then this is a fiction after all and its purpose is to enthrall and entertain. Mission accomplished! -
News and features
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King Kong
- system
- 01 Jan 2000
If the Lord of the Rings trilogy represents one of the biggest gambles in the history of cinema, its success gave writer-director Peter Jackson a free hand. He chose to go back to a dream project, and remake the movie that had inspired him above all others, the 1933 King Kong. A questionable move, you might think, considering Hollywood’s track record with remakes. But Jackson's love for the original shines through in a movie that not only retains the original’s early 30s setting,... Read more
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