King Kong

It clocks in at over three hours, but Peter Jackson's remake of the 1933 classic is gripping nonetheless.

Kong is a showy, state-of-the-art popcorn movie, faithful to the spirit of the 1933 original but generously adrenalized with the best effects money can buy.

Despite admirable chest thumping and Watts' wonderfully enhanced scream, there is still only one true king.

As for Kong himself, although the computer has played a large part in his creation, he could never be considered as anything less than real.

What could have been Jackson's folly is a triumph, the kind of romantic action spectacle that makes the big screen silver and provides box-office gold. Puts the prime in primate.

The interplay between Watts' melancholy blond and the great ape is almost too real to be believed. It's touching and heartfelt in a way even modernistic, non-effects-driven films can't manage.

Peter Jackson draws on the original 1933 classic in his 2005 remake of King Kong and the film is every bit the epic that one would expect.

The visual effects are glorious -- a circus of cliffhanging suspense sequences that go on and on and on. But rather than just padding the story with gummy exposition and silly action, Jackson delves deeply into the psychology of the characters.

... an old-fashioned monster movie/jungle thriller pushed to the limits with new technology by a filmmaker with both the skill and the heart to recapture the thrills of his adolescent moviehouse dreams.

Does it improve on its landmark predecessor? Of course not. But on its own terms, this interpretation gets the job done in often spectacular fashion.