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| Naomi
Watts, Adrien Brody, Jack Black, Thomas Kretschmann, Colin
Hanks, Andy Serkis, Jamie Bell |
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Anamorphic
widescreen |
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Dolby Digital
5.1 |
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DTS |
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Trailer(s) |
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Featurette(s) |
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Documentary |
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Audio commentary
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Deleted scenes
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Concept art
/ storyboards |
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Multi-angle
feature |
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Carl Denham
(Jack Black): Monsters
belong in B movies.
In 1933 New York, an overly ambitious
movie producer coerces his cast and hired ship crew to travel to
mysterious Skull Island, where they encounter Kong, a giant ape
who is immediately smitten with leading lady Ann Darrow.
 Somewhat
overshadowed at the time of its much-hyped release by the many
reports about Peter Jackson's record-breaking salary and the film's
sky-rocketing budget, King Kong was clearly a film that
would have a hard time living up to expectations. Not only would
the Lord
of the Rings trilogy be a hard act to follow, but without
a similar literary pedigree and broad built-in appeal, Kong was
also setting itself up to be a film that could easily prove to
be more accessible to film geeks and nostalgia buffs than to the
international multiplex crowd required by the film's phenomenal
budget.
But although Kong failed to scale the financial heights
of Titanic or Return of the King, it still proved
to be a crowd-pleasing spectacle with enough movie references and
in-jokes to please critics and hardcore movie buffs while
bringing in the required number of bums on seats. What's more, in spite of the
fact that the film thrives on a big-screen canvas that seems all
but required for its gargantuan setpieces, there is enough of an
emotional core to the film to allow it to survive the transition
to the smaller screen surprisingly comfortably. The film's lengthy
opening holds up to repeated viewings thanks to its lively pace
and corny but perfectly likable gags.
Which is not to say that the film's flaws are any less evident than they were in theaters:
the most problematic moment remains the sequence where Kong is
captured, which is neither all that convincingly staged (small
groups of sailors are somehow able to hold Kong down using ropes),
nor is it dramatically credible. And besides prompting the still-unaddressed
question how they ever got a 30-foot gorilla onto the boat, the
scene also marks the moment where all the carefully constructed
subplots involving the supporting characters are abandoned outright:
all the sailor characters simply disappear, while Colin Hanks'
character is left unresolved. Fortunately, these nagging sidetracks
are all but drowned out by the gloriously staged finale atop the
Empire State Building.
Those hoping that Peter Jackson's extended cut of the film would address the film's most obvious flaws will be in for some disappointment: rather than resolving the supporting characters' various arcs in this slightly longer version of the film, Jackson instead adds more effects sequences, with two additional encounters between the ship's crew and some previously-unseen creatures on Skull Island, as well as an extended fight between Kong and the military in New York. Far from a radically enhanced experience, this alternative cut of the film therefore gives its audience a little more of what was already there.
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Released last spring as a single-disc and two-disc edition, which was preceded by a stand-alone release of the web-sourced 'Production Diaries', the extended edition is now out for Region 1 and Region 2 as a deluxe three-disc release featuring all-new extras and thirteen minutes of extra footage added into the film.
The anamorphic widescreen
image is framed at its theatrical aspect ratio of approx. 2.35:1. As impressive as the transfer on the first DVD release was, it did include the occasional compression artefact as a result of squeezing a three-hour-plus movie onto a single disc. With the addition of the extended footage, Jackson has now spread the film across the first two platters in this set, resulting in an even crisper, more detailed video experience that is of reference level throughout.
The Dolby
Digital 5.1 sound mix is simiarly impressive, its Oscar-winning
sound design breathing life into the film even on smaller
screens effortlessly with its astonishingly detailed use
of surround channels and discrete effects.
 With the earlier DVD releases of the Production Diaries and the Post-Porduction Diaries on the two-disc King Kong DVD, Peter Jackson's simian behemoth would already seem to be sufficiently documented as far as behind-the-scenes information goes. But with the release of this new three-disc set, the other extras are completely overshadowed by the outstanding package on display here.
The full-length audio commentary by Jackson and co-screenwriter Philippa Boyens is worthwhile, but not quite equal to the three-hour-plus documentary featured on disc three, giving us a blow-by-blow inside account of the production from its first inception in 1996. What this intimate look at the film reveals most clearly is that its major flaws are undoubtedly the result of the frankly unrealistic schedule under which the film was made, with the screenplay undergoing constant rewrites throughout production. But there are far more supplements scattered across the other three discs as well, made somewhat easier to find thanks to the treasure map-themed insert. The other extras range from production design visuals to deleted scenes to bloopers and references to the original film.
Dan
Hassler-Forest
Reviewed:
November 22, 2006
Click
here for IMDB info on King
Kong .
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to return to the front page.
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