Peter Jackson's remake of King Kong truly deserves its subtitle "The Eighth Wonder of the World" for more reasons than merely the massive silverback gorilla in the starring role " it's one of the best films seen in a long time. Even with a running time of 3 hours, it never gets boring.

Like the original, Jackson kept his remake set in 1933: "I think that there's no real sense of mystery or discovery in the world anymore today," Jackson explains. "Yet in the 1930s, you could believe that there was one tiny, uncharted corner that hadn't been discovered by man yet." It's to this uncharted corner that the fearless filmmakers must go " literally, for King Kong is actually about a group of filmmakers.

The story begins in New York, in 1933, during the Great Depression. Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) is an out-of-work actress who crosses the path of filmmaker Carl Denham (Jack Black). Desperate to finish his movie, in spite of the studio attempting to pull the plug, Denham convinces Darrow to join his film crew that will be departing that afternoon for, Singapore. Carl actually bribes the captain of the ship, Captain Englehorn (Thomas Kretschmann) to help him search for the mysterious and legendary Skull Island. The project's screenwriter, Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody), has also been coerced on board, much to the joy of Darrow, who has long been a fan of Driscoll's plays.

But tragedy strikes when, against all odds, the ship reaches Skull Island and Ann gets kidnapped by natives and offered up to the mighty King Kong as a sacrifice. This is when the adventure part of the movie truly begins, the crew must hunt for her, and Kong himself will battle dinosaurs to help keep her alive.

Think Jurassic Park meets Lord of the Rings times 1,000 and you have the thrill and wonder of the new King Kong. And the gorilla himself, a wholly computer-generated creature captured with the aid of Andy Serkis (Gollum, Lord of the Rings ) pushes the boundaries of CGI even further. It's spectacular what Jackson has managed to accomplish in this film, both in the jungle and in New York. The multiple-Oscar winning Weta Digital Ltd. and Weta Workshop Ltd. had to invent entirely new techniques for the film. Jackson explains, "The Weta animators were going to have to do a huge amount of work, because in many respects, the animation on Kong is more important than Gollum, a lot of that character was motion captured. But there is a significant number of things that Kong is doing that Andy can't do: a lot of climbing, running, and dinosaur fighting." Also, in order to give lifelike animation to Kong's face Weta craftsmen had to build a model with the correct musculature and skeletal structure of a gorilla, then they developed software that could translate human expressions into corresponding gorilla expressions.

But fortunately the story never got neglected in favor of the technology, King Kong will take you on a roller coaster ride of emotions from fear to happiness and some "awws" to possibly even a few tears. Do not miss this spectacle on the big screen. As Denham says in the film, you can prepare to be amazed simply "for the price of an admission ticket."

Cast and crew speaking at the press conference

DVD Extras:

Over 3 Hours of Bonus Features!

• Introduction by Peter Jackson
• Post Production Diaries #55 - #90
• Kong's New York , 1933
• The Natural History of Skull Island