And the Prophet said, ‘And lo, the beast looked upon the face of beauty. And it stayed its hand from killing. And from that day, it was as one dead.’

King Kong is a glorious film- it succeeds just as gloriously as it fails. The best thing Peter Jackson has going for himself here is that he respects Kong. The scenes between Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) and King Kong (Andy Serkis in a Gollum-suit) are magic; they play like a beautiful romantic silent film. The two sunsets and a poignant playful ice dance between them are pure movie magic. The choice of actors is perfect- Jack Black, Colin Hanks and Adrian Brody are just right.

The trouble is that the middle act suffers from Lost-World-itis; a disorder of directors of creature flicks who have been told that their creatures make their movies great. They believe that more creatures will make it greater. It is the juvenile, sugar-high, Tarantinoesque obsession with more. Tarantino usually gets away with his distractions; mainly because his films are entirely distractions strung together until they gel into a coherent mess. Not so with King Kong. The middle act on Skull Island involves multiple creatures over and over and over and over and over…

There were 2 hours of the best film this year hidden in 3 hours of mess.