In Depression-Era New York, actress Ann Darrow is desperate to find work of any kind. What she finds is a job with adventurous impresario Carl Denham, who is traveling to a remote jungle island in search of exotic wonders and time-lost civilizations. Where that voyage leads them is to the mighty Eighth Wonder of the World, King Kong, a colossal gorilla who lives on an extraordinary island populated by dinosaurs, giant reptiles, and various other monsters and beasts once thought only mythological. Darrow captures the ape's fancy, Denham captures the ape, and soon the gigantic creature is the cause celebre of Art Deco Manhattan... until he escapes and lays waste to the glittering New York skyline. Sound familiar? Peter "He Who Can Do No Wrong" Jackson has taken the ballsy move of recreating and expanding the original Cooper/Schoesdack production, leaving the picture's time and place intact. Leave it to a durn furriner to understand our pop culture better than we do - if there's anything that the 1976 remake proved, it's that Kong's story works only in the context of American adventurism and optimism, as deftly portrayed in the against-all-odds can-do spirit that got America through the Great Depression and beyond. Jackson is also the only major modern filmmaker aside from Sam Raimi to guilelessly and happily believe in the pure magic of movies, and to consider hope a more potent and intriguing theme than cynicism. God, how we love both them boys.
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