"When it comes to exhilarating adventure and jaw-dropping special effects, 'Kong' is king ... a stunning, giant-sized, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink remake.

"Three memorable performances humanize the adventure, including Naomi Watts, as the spunkiest and most appealing Ann Darrow imaginable, and Adrien Brody as her smart, understanding boyfriend Jack Driscoll, remade here as a screenwriter (and not the sailor of the original).

"The third humanizing performance isn't even human: It's Kong himself, a magically expressive performance by the giant ape, based in part on studies of real silverback gorillas, re-created for the computer by actor Andy Serkis (who inspired the computer geniuses to bring Gollum to life for 'Lord of the Rings'). Serkis also plays Lumpy, the colorful ship's cook."

"The original Kong is still king."

Director Peter "Jackson's 'Kong' is too bloated and digressive to match the pure adrenaline of the first film, perhaps the finest B-movie ever made."

Jackson "offers us an escape into a world that is romantic, funny and thrilling — a world you want to believe in even though you know it never existed. Jackson is a moviemaker who loves the movies and who knows why we love the movies. Which is why this 'Kong' is going to be huge.

"At one point, Jackson's script has somebody saying, 'The whole world will pay to see this.' He's talking about King Kong, but he could just as easily be talking about this 'King Kong.' "

"It starts too slowly, and suffers from weak dialogue and less-than-epic acting. But as popcorn movies go, this is the year's popcorniest.

"The island world is complete and believable. The dinosaurs who still live there would make Spielberg blush. There's a vivid shipwreck and convincing aerial combat.

" 'Kong' has the thrills that 'Narnia' lacks, and some of the heart and gee whiz that make the latest 'Harry Potter' such a treat. Still, it feels like a two-hour spectacle trying to break free of a three-hour movie."

"What a movie!

"The $200 million-plus spectacle is funny when it wants to be, exhilarating when it needs to be and a sentimental triumph at the end."

"It was reasonable to figure there was no way Jackson could top his monumental 'The Lord of the Rings' trilogy. Yet Jackson's done so with his spectacular update of the country-ape-meets-city-girl love story, his 'King Kong' passionately commemorating the original while adding chills, frills and thrills by the boatload.

"Just when it seemed Hollywood had reached a visual-effects plateau where all a film could do was pile on more of the same without distinguishing itself from its computer-generated predecessors, along comes 'Kong' to swing to new peaks of dazzling digital storytelling."

"A movie about the movies, and specifically an exploitation picture about exploitation pictures, Jackson's 'Kong' is also a witty comment on the darkness at the heart of adventure stories, a bazillion-dollar spectacle that reserves the right to question the morality of spectacles, and, mostly, a tender love story about a melancholy girl and her tragically misunderstood monkey."