Kong was brought to life with a combination of stop-action models and early "animatronics"... a big head that chews up people and a long, really mechanical-looking arm &hand that's out of scale with the rest of Kong's body. But the stop-action sequences are cool and totally believable. The scene where he rocks men off the tree-bridge is well staged. His battle with the T-rex is classic. In another scene, a dragon-like dino wraps itself around Kong's throat....this was re-created in Monsters, Inc. in Randall's final showdown with Sully....didn't notice? Check it out.
The Empire State Building and the biplanes; who could forget that? "No, the airplanes didn't get him; 'twas Beauty killed the Beast!" How about the sequence when he busts through the giant gates and grabs Ann Darrow (Fay Wray)? Uh, pretty much the whole movie is awesome! It's no wonder no one even bothered to try a remake until...
Jessica Lange, the Twin Towers, ...and a guy in a monkey suit. Some dude looking for a new place to drill oil picks up shipwreck survivor named "Dwan"- that's not a typo. So she calls Kong a "male chauvenist pig" which was supposed to be like, modern or something. This is a movie ya see once, and don't bother again. Lame-o.
The Jack Black version is far better. I'm not a big fan of CGI, but this film is well crafted. Some cool scenes in this one...the Skull Island natives are way creepy. The dino stampede was nifty.I liked the bit where she does her vaudeville dance for Kong, and he thinks it cute to knock her down. This Kong behaves more like a gorilla than earlier kongs. His "ice-skating" on the lake at Central Park was neat. Wisely, this film was set in the era of the original, not in our time. But the original is in a class by itself.
Matt da Ratt
