King Kong review

35 years ago, a nine year old boy sat in front of his television and cried at the end of the 1933 classic King Kong. The same boy, by then a fully grown film director, also cried when he met a frail Fay Wray shortly before her death in the summer of 2004. And he'll probably cry again come Oscar Night, when his latest movie is sure to be honoured for its scale, quality and sheer ambition.

For Peter Jackson - who cites that vision of Kong, lying dead on 34th Street, as his inspiration to make movies - has yet again created a breathtaking blockbuster, underscored with a great screenplay, strong acting performances and, of course, dazzling special effects.

You'll know the story, even if you haven't seen previous versions. Opening in 1930s New York, maverick movie director Carl Denham (Jack Black) dupes a crew, including writer Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody) into a shoot on the mysterious Skull Island. When they crash onto the island's rocks and go ashore, they encounter natives who later snatch the blonde star of the movie, Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts), and offer her as a sacrifice to the great ape that lives on the island. In fact they form an unlikely bond and so, when the ape is later captured and taken back to New York, she is his last comfort in the iconic final scene. Or, more simply put, it's Beauty and the Beast.

The movie opens and closes in Depression-era Manhattan, which is beautifully created on-screen, as is the terrifying Skull Island and its bloodthirsty natives, complete with bones through their noses (though once they've been shot at by the ship's crew, they scarper and are never seen or mentioned again). The special effects are dazzling, with a few very notable exceptions more reminiscent of a 1980s pop video than a state-of-the-art Hollywood film which somehow survived the final cut. Since these sequences come in the middle of the longest, and most repetitive, section of the film, their omission would have been unnoticeable.

Peter Jackson and his co-screenwriters managed to resist the temptation of cheesy Indiana Jones style one-liners during the adventure sequences, though there are some nice in-jokes. The studio head, for example, complains to his director Carl Denham about the spiralling cost of the film: "It's not the principle of the thing, it's the money!" Both the screenplay, the dialogue and the acting performances are restrained and efficient, with notable performances from Tom Hanks' son Colin as the film's production assistant and Thomas Kretschmann as the ship's captain (we won't mention Billy Elliot star Jamie Bell's American accent). And of course there's Kong himself, played on-set and via motion-capture technology, in the New York scenes, by Andy Serkis. As well as his understanding and study of animal movements, which also made his portrayal of Lord of the Rings' Gollum so extraordinary, Serkis is a fine character actor, so his doubling up as ship's cook Lumpy is an additional treat.

. Rated a 12A, it has some gruesome moments, but it's worth wincing through some gory goings-on in Skull Island's spider pit to relish iconic scenes such as the mighty Kong swatting at bi-planes from the top of the Empire State Building. One man's passion and vision, and a sky-high budget of $207 million, have combined to create a classic movie blockbuster, easily worth three hours of your time and a cinema ticket.

Dinah Gray