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You know how in Barbra Streisand movies there's always that scene where the male lead pulls Babs aside and literally forces her to acknowledge her alleged beauty? (PS. I don't watch Barbra Streisand movies.) I got the feeling watching King Kong that Peter Jackson was working out similar childhood self-image issues. For starters, in this version, Ann Darrow doesn't just feel reluctant pity for the great ape; she unequivocally wants to jump his monkey bones. I'm not exaggerating. Either Ann rolled some E on the way to Skull Island or she has the inter-species hots something fierce. (This despite the fact that Kong keeps biting the heads off her friends. What an asshole.) Her interaction with Kong is punctuated with the kinds of orgasmic moans and sighs one usually encounters in the clip reels of George Clooney's ex-girlfriends. And earlier in the film, a major point is made of Adrien Brody's physical unattractiveness as Darrow's potential (and subsequently sidelined) human love interest. If Jackson inexplicably deviates from the cherished Kong of his youth in some ways (do we really need an extra ninety minutes of repetitive digital lizard/bug brawls and fetishistic immersion in CG effluvia?), he pays misguided "homage" to the film in other ways—e.g., directing his cast to hammy acting suicide (excepting Jack Black, whose inability to deliver dialog without air quotes is merely a congenital defect) and larding the visual effects with smug, expensive winks to the limitations of the original film. (Personal beef: is the green-screening jarringly atrocious on purpose or the result of rushed postproduction?) I could go on, but basically King Kong is so belabored, so tone-deaf and so unrelentingly botched that I'm absolutely mystified by the raves it's been receiving from critics. Maybe they rolled some E on the way to Skull Island too. Grade: C