Blu-ray Movie Reviews

I haven't seen director Peter Jackson's extended cut of this movie, now available on ordinary DVD. And I don't plan to do so until Universal sees fit to release it in high definition. After viewing this gorgeous HD DVD release of the original, theatrical version, I don't think I ever want to see the film again in standard definition.

This HD DVD release is not only head and shoulders above the admittedly respectable standard DVD release, but comes far closer to the incredible print I saw at the Arclight Cinemas in Hollywood a year ago. There's a little more grain (noise?) here than I recall from that theatrical experience, and a bit less of a filmlike look. But this HD DVD will do nicely nevertheless, particularly on a screen large enough for an immersive experience. The image here is sharp, true, and impressively 3-dimensional. The dizzying scenes atop the Empire State Building, in particular, will leave you reeling. The colors are also exactly as I recall them, and the deep blacks and shadow detail will be as good as your video display can manage.

The sound here, oddly, is limited to Dolby Digital Plus, but I found little in it to complain about. The action scenes have impressive grunt, and there's plenty of activity to keep your surrounds busy. Like the DD+ I hear on many HD DVDs, even auditioned as I did here from the Toshiba HD-A1 player's coaxial digital output (where it is converted to DTS at 1.5Mb/sec), everything sounds noticeably more pristine than the plain vanilla Dolby Digital on the standard definition DVD. That goes a long way here in easing the few sonic reservations I had about that DVD's sound.

I still find the mix a little light in the very deepest bass (though by no means bass-shy), but in compensation the DD+ audio brings out a wealth of sonic detail: the old-fashioned, squeezed through a telephone sound of the song "Sittin' On Top of the World" that opens the film, the incessant buzz of the jungle creatures on Skull Island, the sounds of chaos as Kong rips through a New York theater, the skyscraper finale as fighter biplanes attack Kong accompanied by the sound of their guns, engines, and the building's breaking glass and splintering metal, and much more. The dialog is always intelligible and natural sounding, and James Newton Howard's score (better than might be expected given that it was a rush job after Howard Shore's score was rejected) sounds superb when it isn't smothered by the sound effects.

This is one of the best high definition discs in either format. The only thing they skimped on is extra features, which are limited to pop-up commentaries and production art galleries—a far cry from the massive helping of extras that accompany other video releases of Peter Jackson's films.

(Picture: 9.5 (out of 10), Sound: 9, Film: 9)