Films That Can Be Salvaged Part 2: King Kong (2005)

The Rundown: King Kong was Peter Jackson’s followup to his acclaimed Lord of the Rings trilogy, and his dream film. It was a solid commercial and critical success for Jackson and Universal Studios.

What made it great: Skull Island, the real star of the movie. Once the film set foot on the island, all heck breaks loose, and the film literally became one action scene followed by another for a few hours. There were a lot of creatures and WTF moments making for an entertaining thrill-ride.

What can be fixed: I’m not going to prescribe re-casting the film, let’s be reasonable! I will say Jack Black did seem a bit out of place - I would have went for Paul Giamatti instead - he pulls off the ‘crazed-scheming’ very well. And Adrien Brody, while good, didn’t seem to be the heroic classical lead a film like King Kong warrants.

As for what can be fixed: the length and uneven pacing of the film. It took way too long to get to Skull Island, and once there it was a non-stop action scene, with very few breathers for the audience.

I would start the film on the boat ride to Skull Island. And once there, I’d then sprinkle a few flashbacks of New York (footage from the first hour of the film) throughout to help the audience catch their breath and to provide some much-needed characterization that sort of went absent on Skull Island. Basically chop the film up and piece it together is some crazed Tarantino-inspired chronological remix.

I think a shortened running time, with a balanced story flow will improve upon an already great film, and add a lot of replay value. As it currently stands in my opinion, King Kong is one of those films you can watch once or twice, or in a selective fashion (skipping to the good parts), and be done with.