Review of King Kong

I have made it clear that I've been a huge Kong fan nearly my whole life. I always tried to avoid this remake knowing that it could very well ruin the original for me and possibly even spoil my love for the King Kong movies. I owned the first three Kong films on VHS (King Kong, Son of Kong, and Kong Kong Vs. Godzilla) and never really considered this part of the series and decided it was just a rehash to be avoided. But one time my mom told me that this film was deeper than the '33 original and made you actually cry when King Kong died.She thought this movie was better! Now I know that wasn't true but I took my mom's advice and checked this movie out when it came on TV a few years ago. I wasn't blown away but I must say I really enjoyed it and had a great action/drama/romance roller-coaster with this fun movie. This movie did have better action and emotion than the original (I actually did get sad when Kong died as I never did before, there I said it!) but I just lacked something. The absence of the dinosaurs was a major downfall and the realistic take on the character was something I never liked as even though he looked more like a giant gorilla than the old Kong, he wasn't even half as fun to watch. There were things about this movie I liked better than the original but when it all adds up, there is no comparison. King Kong '33 wins by a long shot. It is hard I might add not to compare the two films but even as a stand alone movie, this 70s remake was not completely what I wanted. The new characters were actually modern versions of the old ones just with different names (Jack Driscoll-Jack Prescott, Carl Denham- Fred Wilson, Ann Darrow-Dwan and so on) and I appreciated them on a certain level although this version of Carl/Fred was more sleazy and all I saw was his jerk side. He deserved being flattened by Kong's foot. Jessica Lange was better eye candy then Fay Wray and made for an intriguing love interest to Kong. She also brought the whole beauty and the beast/his love for women is his downfall theme to a slightly greater level. Everyone did their part well but my favorite was Jeff Bridges as Jack Prescott. He was a true heroic nature lover and the exact opposite of Fred Wilson I just bought it on DVD today along with King Kong Lives (1986) and added them to my collection of Kong Kong DVDs (King Kong Vs. Godzilla and King Escapes will be joining them in four days!). In all fairness, King Kong '76 is definitely a worthy entry to the huge Kong series and has remained one of my favorites for some time now. Can't wait to see the second remake of King Kong in a month, it will be the motion picture event of the year for me and probably a lot better than this movie (but not the '33 original). King Kong '76 is a great remake but not as good as the original! I give this great attempt at a modernization of a classic tale an 8/10!