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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
King Kong

Universal acclaim
Based on 39 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 965 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Action | Adventure | Drama | Fantasy | Sci-fi | Suspense/Thriller
Written by:
Peter Jackson
Fran Walsh
Philippa Boyens
Merian C. Cooper and Edgar Wallace (story)
Directed by: Peter Jackson
Release Date:
Theatrical: December 14, 2005
DVD: March 28, 2006
Running Time: 187 minutes, Color
Origin: New Zealand / USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for frightening adventure violence and some disturbing images
Starring Naomi Watts, Jack Black, Adrien Brody, Andy Serkis, Jamie Bell, Kyle Chandler, Lobo Chan, and Thomas Kretschmann
Director Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings trilogy) helms the dramatic adventure King Kong, bringing his sweeping cinematic vision to the iconic story of the gigantic ape captured in the wild and brought to civilization where he meets his tragic fate. (Universal Studios)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Dead Alive The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
GAMES: Peter Jackson's King Kong (Xbox 360)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
New York Daily News Jack Mathews
What a movie! This is how the medium seduced us originally.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Here is the jaw-dropping, eye-popping, heart-stopping movie epic we've been waiting for all year.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
Break out the popcorn and prepare to be blown away. King Kong is the most pulse- pounding and heart-stirring romantic adventure since "Titanic."
Read Full Review >Empire Dan Jolin
Unlike its newly trim director, Kong does boast some flab around the middle but by the final reel there’s little doubt that 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.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Dana Stevens
The rapport between Ms. Watts and Mr. Serkis is extraordinary, even though it is mediated by fur, latex, optical illusions and complicated effects. Mr. Serkis, who also played Gollum in the "Lord of the Rings" movies, is redefining screen acting for the digital age, while Ms. Watts incarnates the glamour and emotional directness of classical Hollywood.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
A magnificent entertainment. It is like the flowering of all the possibilities in the original classic film.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
But overall, Jackson goes for the magic by sidestepping every error of judgment and failure of imagination that brought the ponderous 1976 remake thudding to Earth before Kong ever did. He delivers three solid hours of breathless, enchanting entertainment.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
Not only does it recapture -- and enhance -- the subtle emotional core that has made the film so beloved for the past three-quarters of a century, it delivers the most eye-boggling, hair-raising movie thrill ride since 1993's "Jurassic Park."
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
Jackson's big monkey picture show is certainly the best popular entertainment of the year. The film is a wondrous blend of then and now: It honors its mythic predecessor of 1933 while using sophisticated movie technology to seamlessly manipulate the fantastic.
Read Full Review >Newsweek Devin Gordon
A surprisingly tender, even heartbreaking, film. Like the original, it's a tragic tale of beauty and the beast.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar
Here is a movie that celebrates the heyday of adventure cinema even as it embraces technology's bleeding edge. And I'm willing to forgive a lot when giant gorillas and tyrannosaurs are involved. Must be the art snob in me.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
After a start heavy on exposition, the film strings one action setpiece after another, each realized with the breathless excitement of an adventure pulp cover. It's as if Jackson set out to bring to life every fantasy of the last moment before earth gave way to space as the site of the final frontier.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano
King Kong is an homage not just to the original but to the history of movies themselves.
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
A spectacular three-hankie tragic love story--sometimes dumb and often clunky and always pretty cornball, but just about irresistible.
Read Full Review >Variety Todd McCarthy
Almost too much of a good thing, Peter Jackson's remake of the film that made him want to make movies is a super-sized version of a yarn that was big to begin with, a stupendous adventure that maximizes, and sometimes oversells, its dazzling wares.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
The gorilla is great, the girl terrific, sets are out of this world, creatures icky as hell, and the director clearly does not believe in the word "enough."
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
A sweet-natured romantic fable, albeit one that packs in carnivorous cockroaches, rampaging brontosaurs, and the ever-Freudian Empire State Building among its requisite emotional baggage. And, too, it's a corker of an action/monster movie.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
The best of the trio of human performers is Naomi Watts. She also has the most difficult job - not only is the role physical, but it requires her to play off something that isn't there.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
The new Kong is just different enough to be terrific screen company. His relationship with his leading lady, played with heart and panache by Naomi Watts, doesn't feel like an old story retold. It feels like a brand new story.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
Jackson is a visionary filmmaker who is not only a technical wizard but also a master storyteller. With Jackson at the helm, you would expect dazzling special effects and epic action sequences, but what is most surprising is how heartfelt the romance feels.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
The $200 million result is an irresistibly entertaining, if grandiose, saga of doomed love and directorial hubris.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
Kong is brilliant in many, many places. But it overwhelms its own best qualities with its sheer, punishing size. It is, literally, too much of a good thing.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
The scenes between Kong and Ann are much more than a goof: They're the soul of the movie.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
When it comes to what's great about King Kong, it's not the harum-scarum. It's the girl.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
Jackson is far more interested in the relationship between the girl and the ape than he is in the power of special effects for their own sake. As big as King Kong is, its sense of intimacy is what really sticks with you. This is an epic Big Little Book of a picture.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
It clocks in at over three hours, but Peter Jackson's remake of the 1933 classic is gripping. The film rethinks the characters, turning the original's stark Jungian fantasy into a soulless but skillful set of kinetic and emotional effects.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
King Kong makes clear that Jackson has no contemporary peer when it comes to outsized, transporting fantasies that enchant in an era when special effects have become white noise.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
It's not so much a remake as it is a loving re-creation of the 1933 original on extra-strength steroids, with a side order of Botox. You've seen it all before but most assuredly never like this.
Read Full Review >Premiere Glenn Kenny
I say this as someone for whom the very idea of a Kong remake is sacrilege, Jackson's straitened conception yields up a pretty damn good popcorn movie.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Like Kong himself, it's imposing, sometimes endearing, and very rough around the edges.
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
The verdict? King Kong may be a great movie event in a "Jaws/Titanic" sense of blockbuster impact and cultural talking point, but it is not a great movie.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Scott Foundas
King Kong isn't terrible, but it's something that none of Jackson's previous movies ever was -- it's enervating.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker David Denby
This Kong is high-powered entertainment, but Jackson pushes too hard and loses momentum over the more than three hours of the movie. The story was always a goofy fable--that was its charm--and a well-told fable knows when to stop.
Read Full Review >Village Voice J. Hoberman
For King Kong is an accountant's movie at heart. Given the excessive length and bombastic F/X, there's too much action and precious little poetry.
Read Full Review >Time Richard Schickel
Our response to the ape's doom, once touched by authentic tragedy, is now marked by relief that this wretchedly excessive movie is finally over.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky
Jackson is merely indulging himself here, too, doing a thing not because he should but because he can. And maybe that's a good reason but not good enough. The girl still cries, the ape still dies and all you're left with is a ringing in your ears.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
King Kong, a labor of love that's visually stunning and moving in its best moments, is also bloated, shallow, clunky, full of illogical scenes and at least an hour too long.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
On its own terms, the film is overlong, repetitive and lacks impact. Even if this were the first gorilla-in-love movie ever made, audiences would come away vaguely dissatisfied, suspecting there was an intriguing idea buried somewhere in here, but it didn't quite come off.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.0 (out of 10) based on 965 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Jay H. gave it an8:
I lives up to all the hype. This is one hugely entertaining film. Naomi Watts is great and the rest of the cast is fine as well. The special effects are some of the best I have ever seen. It hardly seemed three hours plus because the film was immensely engrossing. Peter Jackson did a great job. The sets, sound and editing are all first rate. The period detail of 1933 is fantastic. This is brilliant film making and has everything a great movie should have.
Stephen H. gave it a6:
Generally an ok film, but i lost interest at certain points. I found the boat journey to the island the most enjoyable bit. Some fo the effects were very real, while others needed a bit more imagination and forgiveness, not that i'd ever rate a film on special effects anyway. We have no idea where all the natives disapeared to, i guess they just weren't required for the film. Overall it was enjoyable, but a tad long and in some places defying the laws of physics and chance in a lot of the action sequences to a point even the most openminded of people couldn't forgive.
Eric K. gave it a0:
A disgrace to the original, which is one of the greatest films of all time.
Shane B. gave it an8:
This is my review of King Kong. Pretty much, it's about Ann Darrow, a woman who, after losing her job in 1933, is offered to be in a movie by a rebellious filmmaker, named Carl Denham, who trying to make a movie. They go on a ship and end up at skull island, where Ann is sacrificed to the ape Kong. Now the only reason i wanted to see this movie was because it was directed by Peter Jackson. So, all in all, it was one of the best movies of 2005. the acting was okay, the action was spectacular. Yet the special effects was mixed. Some effects were awesome, like Kong. Yet others were no good at all. So this is a good film to see. I give Kong 2005 an 8/10.
Nick A. gave it a9:
I’ll start by saying the Peter Jackson’s 'King Kong' is one of the greatest movie epics to hit the screen in recent and distant memory. Its larger-than-life story is woven impeccably with the mythic legend of the film’s title character and the modern century’s absolute best in visual technology to create a movie that invigorates the mind and the heart, while also feeding the eyes a mighty dose of wondrous images. Thanks in part to a handsomely larger budget (a then-record-breaking $207 million), Peter Jackson has revitalized Cooper’s 1933 classic in a way that no other remake has ever done; he’s simply pasted the bigger and the better on top of Hollywood’s most treasured tale, while reminding us of its ageless delights. Jackson’s 'Kong' includes a renovated screenplay – which is done by Jackson and two of his 'LOTR' collaborators, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens – that elaborates on the known characters and offers us a few new ones as well (including the Venture’s gruff cook named Lumpy, played by Andy Serkis – who also performs as Kong). However, as big and hugely conceived (at a lengthy 188 min.) as this movie was, it glided from sequence to sequence fluidly and quickly, while managing to evenly weigh action and sentiment. In fact, 'Kong'’s in-film transitions are as clear and clean as its succulent special effects, which rank among the best ever seen on film. One nervous question mark concerning 'King Kong' was the casting of Jack Black to play the eccentric and obsessive film director, Carl Denham, who’s lust for fame and wealth doom his crew, the soon-to-be ravaged New York City, and the most magnificent beast to have ever been conjured. For me, Black came out a revelation – a previously unveiled gem of the screen. He delivers a performance that is as stirring as it is enthusiastic and further adds to the film’s likability. Along with Black, Jackson’s all-star cast (which also includes Naomi Watts, Adrien Brody, Jamie Bell, and Colin Hanks, to name a few) compliments his vision spotlessly and provides viewers with a refreshing, authentic feel. Everything about Peter Jackson’s 'King Kong' is alluring. The extravagant sets (especially the recreation of Great-Depression-era New York) are meticulously constructed and virtually unrecognizable as being false, and they offer amazement as to how Jackson and his team pulled them off. Equally astonishing is the music, composed by James Newton Howard (whose multitude of Oscar-nominated works include 'The Fugitive', 'My Best Friend’s Wedding', and, most recently, 'The Village'), which is gorgeous and tragic, making it perfect for the story’s famed conclusion. Easily the year’s most monstrously entertaining motion picture, 'King Kong' is also one of the best; and, seeing how it was undertaken by the brilliant Peter Jackson, it comes as no surprise.
Franco N. gave it a3:
Like the big ape himself, this movie was bloated and flabby. They could have at least cut 45 minutes out of it.
Balzac gave it a6:
Like the Big Ape himself, this movie is bloated with too much flab. Kong himself looks like Mighty Joe Young. They made him too small. The scene where Kong wipes the jungle floor with 3 T-Rexes is overkill an not believable. But hey, it's a picture about a giant ape and his blond girlfriend.
