Peter Jackson’s King Kong is the only Kong film you need |
If there’s one movie franchise that I’d happily walk on a bed of nails to avoid watching anything from, it’s the MonsterVerse. So often do they prove to be narratively uninspiring and far too focused on spectacle over sustenance that my attempts to sit through them have, so far, proven unsuccessful. 2014’s Godzilla felt as though director Gareth Edwards had forgotten it was a Godzilla film, with the giant monster not having nearly enough screentime to satisfy me. Its sequel, the 2019 Godzilla: King of the Monsters, had a plot that felt so nonsensical that not even the acting of Kyle Chandler and Vera Farmiga could save it. And yet, while I have very little interest in trying to jump back into those movies — let alone the TV spinoff Monarch: Legacy of Monsters — I do remain a fan of one particular monster, the indomitable King Kong, and of one iteration in particular.
Peter Jackson, famously known for directing The Lord of the Rings movies, scored big with his take on the gigantic ape back when it debuted in theatres 20 years ago on Dec. 14, 2005. Jackson’s take was the second remake of the 1933 film, King Kong (and the seventh movie to feature Kong). It stars Naomi Watts as Ann Darrows, a small-time actress whose scheming director Carl Denham (Jack Black) leads her and the rest of his cast to the dangerous Skull Island. Fresh off his award-winning motion-capture performance as Gollum, Andy Serkis portrays Kong, the giant ape who falls in love with Darrows. It was an........