I saw King Kong a couple of nights ago, and I was amazed. I had so many thoughts throughout the film, and some feelings I've maybe never felt whilst watching a film.

I'm generally not a big fan of film remakes, preferring to watch something more original, but this I loved. King Kong is possibly the best film I've ever seen. Not my favourite film, but one that was very well made. As a side note, the 12A rating (UK) still puzzles me. The film was in parts scary, at least for young children.

When I saw the trailer months ago I knew I wanted to see it when it was released. The fight scene between Kong and a dinosaur enticed me along with the inclusion of Jack Black. When Jack Black came on screen I couldn't help but smile, although his role was actually rather serious. He plays Carl Denham, a rather deceitful and unrepentant film maker who is the real antagonist of the story. He takes his actors and crew to Skull Island, the habitat of many strange and lethal creatures, and throughout is eager to film, risking lives in the process. In some ways the film is about a film being filmed, back in the 30s, which would have been present day when the original was released.

Some of the visuals were stunning. I don't like to go on about CGI and visual effects as I feel you can often focus on this rather than what happens in the film. But I love realism, and through the visuals and the sequence of events on screen I believe the film achieved this, as much as was possible.

Before the film I hadn't given much thought to how the story would go. We've all seen the famous image of Kong on top of the skyscraper, swiping at the passing aeroplanes, but it wasn't until part way through the film that I actually thought about this scene appearing in this version. Because I haven't seen the original I can't comment on how much of the original was included or omitted.

As Kong stood atop the skyscraper I felt my stomach go funny at the height, and marvelled at how good a story King Kong really is - a ginormous gorilla who is brought to the city and his relationship with a human - Ann Darrow. I genuinely felt sorry for Kong, as he was shot at by the planes. My brother raised an interesting point - what else could the humans have done with Kong? But the blame is really on Carl Denham, the film director who fought to bring Kong back to America; who looks upon the dead ape with no remorse for his actions.

I think one of the reasons why I enjoyed the film so much was the absence of marketing that had made me want to see it. The sole trailer that I had seen months ago was really the only advertising I had seen for the film, other than knowing from various sources that it was currently out at the cinema. The film started quite abruptly too, with no real opening sequence. I usually enjoy watching these, but it was a change. In fact, a lot of the film seemed to be conveyed without words, without any unnecessary chatter. Because of all this, the focus was solely on the story of the film for me.

King Kong said a lot to me about the way in which humans just exploit all we can in the pursuit of money. At the expense of many lost lives Kong was brought over to civilisation, where, with ease, destruction was caused. The Broadway-like show of Kong was cut short when he pulled free of his chains and escaped the theatre. I pondered on how temporary our world is when brought into question by a more powerful being, showing how importantly we humans view ourselves. These were pretty deep thoughts to spill from a film about a ginormous gorilla, but Kong really was that good, and in a way, emotional.

Much of the emotion came from the relationship between Ann Darrow and Kong. She seemed to be the only thing that had truly made Kong happy in his lifetime. And this is one of the great things about the way the story is told. We see the transformation of Kong, his changing mentality from one of beast to something more caring.

I would certainly recommend King Kong, to any film goer.

Further reading: King Kong official website