King Kong [HD DVD]

Peter Jackson's labour of love is a spectacular, if overlong, remake of the movie that filled him with wonder as a small boy and inspired him to become a film maker. He may play fast and loose with the viewer's ability to suspend disbelief, giving us, as he does, indestructible people who are impossibly lucky when avoiding being trampled and can strafe their entire surroundings with machine-gun fire and only hit the monsters, but this is OK because it's part of the film's glorious sense of fun. And there may be plenty of ripe dialogue and facial contortion but Jackson puts so much heart into his production that this is perfectly in keeping with the tone of the work. Jackson has made a thrilling homage to the original Hollywood blockbuster, while successfully maintaining the emotional core of the plot. Self-indulgent it may be but it's all the better for that.

I'm sure that by now most of you know the story or have seen the film so I'll concentrate this purely on the quality of the Blu-Ray experience. King Kong is a magnificent movie made so much better by this stunning high-def release. The picture quality is breathtaking at times, especially some of the long distance shots across the rich jungle and the city scenes.It's just gorgeous to watch from end to end. The audio is also amazing, every bit as glorious as you want it to be.

The special features are pretty cool, particularly the way they are embedded into the main feature and are accessed by context-sensitive icons that can be switched on or off at will. I didn't notice much new in there, just a new way of watching them really, but it's great to see them again and really brill to see them so cleverly presented.

Oh, and you get both versions of the movie, the original theatre version and the special edition. Both look and sound utterly remarkable.

Just thought I'd do a short review to stress that all the extras on this set are BRAND NEW for this release and arn't a duplication of the stuff on the 2-Disk release. In fact, if you want the whole lot you'll have to buy the 2-Disk release, this set and the Peter Jackson diarys but its recommended for film students and anyone interested in how a film production works because never before has there been such an indepth look at a film is made, from its conception to final release and lots more besides. Also theres loads of fascinating info about how the film was planned to be made BEFORE Lord of the Rings but fell through thanks to another studio making Mighty Joe Young, the original ideas Jackson had for the first Kong film were so different to the one he eventually made and its amazing to hear all about it.

Also theres a featurette all about the homages to the original Kong movie which are present in the remake, did you know that Jackson owns props from the original film and dotted them about the set on his movie, watch the featurette and see what they are!

Personally I liked the new Kong film and think it got a quiet reception merely because it was, understandably, overshadowed still by the Lord Of The Rings films, its a most enjoyable romp and although theres not a great deal of footage added to this directors cut, the scenes that are added are really good and theres loads of additional scenes to watch in the extras which werent included in the directors cut, so basically this dvd has loads of extra footage...but Jackson decided to stick most in with the extras instead of pad the film out too much.

Its a very nice set and whilst I agree with another reviewers comments that the packaging isnt as nice as the Lord Of The RIngs special editions, the Disk contents are just as good and the box, inlays have lovely artwork..still head and shoulders above many special editions!

Kong is STILL King!