King Kong

The results of this technological bonanza are pretty mixed. With the ape's human characteristics exaggerated, the new Kong lacks his predecessor's noble, yet truly alien ferocity. Seemingly too human, his relationship with the nauseating Jessica Lange is pushed to mawkish and degrading lengths. But Lorenzo Semple's script tries hard to build on its more interesting components. He is unreservedly on the side of Kong and the anthropologist (Bridges), against the oil/sexploitation company who are out to exhibit the ape (and Lange) as commercial objects. And the film's spirited climax is worthy of its ancestry, while a highly ambiguous ending allows the plot to reassert its old political strength and redeem the more grotesque and sexist moments of this resurrection.