I hated how Jackson STRETCHED the movie to be three hours. The original one wasn't that long, and this one didn't need to be that long. There were so many boring, pointless scenes that could have been taken out and it would have made the pacing of the movie, and the overall film, much better.
For example, the scene where Kong is sliding around on the ice in the park. That scene really had no purpose at all, other than to show that Anne actually really likes Kong and that Kong is a pretty swell guy! But we already had that message delivered a little bit earlier in the film, when Anne walked up to Kong and he picked her up. We already knew they had a strong connection with each other, so we didn't need 5 minutes of sliding around and laughing to show us the message over and over again. Also, if mister Kong is heavy enough to make the entire balcony in the theater house crumble apart, why did the ice not even crack? I seriously doubt that the ice is stronger than that balcony, which was holding well over a hundred people when all the seats were full.
Another scene that I really hated, was the scene with all the giant bugs at the bottom of that cliff area. There was NO reason to have that scene in the movie, other than "let's see how many giant monsters we can fit in this film!!!" and "let's have some more really cool death scenes!!!" Jackson just wanted that scene to show off his special effects. It did nothing to help the story. The Captain and the actor guy still could have come back and rescued them, simply by dropping a rope or vine down the edge for them to climb up. All important, plot progressing moments in that scene, easily could have been done without the bugs, and again, it would have made the pacing of the film much better. The army of giant bugs was just ridiculous.
Also, the dinosaur stampede was cool for the first couple of minutes, but it went on FAR too long. And the fact that the Raptors continued to go after the 7 or 8 humans, when there was a PILE OF INJURED, GIANT DINOSAURS RIGHT NEXT TO THEM, is a little odd. No animal would go after some strange, small, unknown prey when they have enough food to last them for years just sitting right next to them. The same thing happened when Anne was in the log, and the T-Rex had a FRESHLY KILLED, HUGE ANIMAL IN ITS MOUTH! But still, the T-Rex simply DROPPED it's fresh prey, so that it could go after some smaller prey. Also, I bet if Jurassic Park had never been made, there wouldn't have been any Raptors in the film at all! I'm not saying that King Kong ripped off Jurassic Park, because it didn't. I'm just making an observation, which is: nobody knew what the heck a Raptor was until Jurassic Park came out.
Oh yeah, the beginning of the film, in New York. Did that whole setting seem fake to anyone else? Like, when they would walk around the streets, New York just felt very... generated... very... smooth and weird looking. It didn't really feel like a city, it felt more like some castle from a Final Fantasy game. Of course, I wasn't around New York in the 30s, so maybe that's really what it was like... But the entire city just seemed... fake. Of course, when they came back from the island, it didn't seem fake anymore. It was really weird. It felt like they were coming back to a whole new city. I don't know if I'm the only one who felt that way or not, but it did seem odd.
Anyway. Jack Black was really good in the movie. Like, surprisingly good. It's really awesome how intense he was about the role. Even though there are other people who deserve it more, I still think it would be neat if he won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
Overall, the movie wasn't THAT bad... But it did unnecessarily drag on in certain places. In some parts I felt like Jackson was really trying to make a good film, and in other parts I felt like he just wanted to show off his neat special effects, without paying attention to the story, and create a "long epic" like LotR, even though King Kong doesn't really need to be a long epic to be good (whereas LotR did).
Doesn't make it to my top five list of the year, but it's not in the top five worst movies either. It's right in the middle.