I give Peter Jackson's 2005 remake with Naomi Watts high marks for finally getting the character of Ann Darrow and her relationship with Kong right. DeLaurentis and company made an attempt with Jessica Lange in 1976 but blew it by making Lange act like a flake in all but one scene. A couple of key points: Watts' Ann refuses to participate in the exploitative unveiling of Kong in New York. Then, at the Empire State Building, when Kong puts her down in a safe place, Watts does the very thing that I wanted Lange to do, but Lange failed to do, and that was climb up the ladder and impose herself between Kong and the airplanes. Background on the making of the film revealed that the scene was Watts' idea when she and Jackson were visiting the Empire State Building to get the logistics and she saw the ladder. That her tactic to save Kong works for only about a minute (the pilots, having no honor, circle around and shoot him in the back) makes the scene more, not less, tragic.

Merion Cooper in 1933 may not have viewed the director character based on himself as the villain, although we do, and Jackson in 2005 very clearly does. When Robert Armstrong's Carl Denham said "It was beauty killed the beast," much of the audience probably believed him. But when Jack Black's Denham says it, we know that he, like a certain former occupant of the White House, is evading responsibility for his own actions.

Jackson's version also addresses The Unenthusiastic Critic's point regarding suspension of disbelief in make-believe creatures versus creatures that were real but shown in unreal ways. I've long had a pet peeve about the 1933 original showing a brontosaurus eating a man, which insulted my intelligence even as a child. The 1976 remake avoids the issue entirely by leaving out the dinosaurs. In the the 2005 remake, however, the men encounter the species in question peacefully eating vegetables, until raptors borrowed from Spielberg attack and start a stampede. I loved that.

The one problem with the earlier versions that Jackson failed to fix was the natives. He did change them but not in a good way. They were over the top. It took the Monsterverse to do right by the natives. They are now South Asian, and they get on well with Kong without sacrificing people.