Plot summary: Hot-rodded Beauty-and-the-Beast fable in which devious 1930s film-maker goes to uncharted island; giant ape-god captures comely heroine; heroine captures ape's heart; ape protects heroine by slaughtering dinosaurs; film-maker captures ape; ape runs amok in New York, climbs Empire State Building and gets shot down by aircraft. If you've seen the 1933 classic, the Peter Jackson version is just the same, only bigger.
Science review: No, apes as big as Kong don't exist (even though the effects make it seem entirely believable). But the notion of odd-sized animals being discovered on islands isn't ridiculous. The 2004 discovery of dwarf hominids living until relatively recently on the Indonesian island of Flores, together with giant rats, huge lizards and pygmy elephants (see 'Flores man special'), highlighted the long-known fact that islands can host motley assemblages of archaic creatures (but dinosaurs?), which prolonged isolation has turned into dwarfs or giants.
There's another thing about Kong that's odd, of course: he seems to be the only representative of his species. Well, very large creatures are known to live a long time. Maybe he's just the last in his line.
Award: The most spectacular dispatch of a dinosaur by a mammal. Eat that, Jurassic Park.
Image: courtesy of Universal Pictures |
