`KING KONG' RAISES THE BAR FOR THE ART OF FILMMAKING.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Critic

MAYBE YOU avoided Peter Jackson's ``Lord of the Rings'' trilogy because you don't dig wizards and Hobbits and you're partial to elves only when they're working in Santa's Workshop. That's fine. It just means his latest fantasy masterpiece, ``King Kong,'' is going to blow your mind even more.

It cannot be oversold: Jackson is so far ahead of every director making these epic, effects-laden event movies that it's really not even fair. The only comparison one could make would be Steven Spielberg when ``Jurassic Park'' came out a dozen years ago, and even that's not apt because Jackson isn't simply content to throw a monster mash. He wants you to feel for the brute, too. That combination of goose-bump-inducing and lump-in-your-throat moviemaking is almost impossible to pull off, but Jackson makes it look easy. He gets it. He is the master.

Dino De Laurentiis notwithstanding, remaking ``Kong'' is not sacrilege. The 1933 original was indeed as groundbreaking in its effects as Jackson's remake, but its dialogue and acting were about as subtle as one of Fay Wray's fainting spells. And the less said about its depiction of Skull Island's ``restless natives'' the better. The movie can deservedly be called a classic, but it's also one that cries out for an update.

Jackson and his screenwriting collaborators - Phillipa Boyens and Fran Walsh - clearly know and love ``Kong,'' and they have included the spirit of the original throughout their eye-popping remake. Hard-core fans can thus knowingly pick up the references, but Jackson hasn't created a film for them as much as anyone who truly loves to be enveloped in the moviegoing experience.

At 3 hours, 7 minutes, Jackson's ``Kong'' is generous. to be sure. Not overly so, though. The film spends its first 40 minutes putting its principal (human) characters together - fame-hungry filmmaker Carl Denham (Jack Black); sensitive writer, soon-to-be hero Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody); and starving (literally - it's the Depression) actress Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts), a woman Denham calls ``the saddest girl'' he has ever met.

Forty minutes into the movie, their ship runs into the aptly named (and brilliantly realized) Skull Island. From there, it doesn't take long for the island's edgy inhabitants to kidnap Ann and offer her as a sacrifice to Kong. And from there, well, it's off to the races. The movie never looks back and never lets up.

Perhaps you've seen the trailer, or TV spots or billboards featuring Kong facing off against a T-rex on a valley floor with Naomi Watts in the middle of the beasts. You're thinking: ``Looks cool.'' You don't know the half of it, and I won't spoil any of it here. What deserves mentioning is that Jackson is never content to give you what you expect. Like any great artist, he takes your assumptions and twists them in some unexpected way, delivering scenes of such wondrous imagination that you watch with a combination of awe and glee.

The film's greatest achievement is the tenderness with which it conveys the love and longing between Ann and Kong. Jackson reassembled his crack ``LOTR'' visual-effects teams and recruited Andy Serkis, the actor who played Gollum, to work his motion-capture magic again with the Great Ape. The effects deserve and will undoubtedly receive all the glory, but Serkis should get some gold, too. He nails the monkey's movements and gives the beast a recognizable soul.

Elsewhere, Jackson has done a splendid job in casting the leads. Watts brings the God's-honest-truth to Ann's love for Kong; she's also funny, alluring and touching. Brody makes for an unlikely but believable hero, and wild-card Black uses his rascally charm to fine effect, playing the self-knowing, self-loathing Hollywood con man.

Of course, Jackson, the New Zealand outsider, himself knows a thing or two about Hollywood and uses Black's Denham to make a point or two about the town's penchant for spectacle. That he's doing this in this - the ultimate spectacle - is just another example of the movie's multitude of layers. ``When other directors see this movie, they're going to give up,'' Boyens recently told an interviewer. And, hey, if this is the movie that shames Michael Bay out of the business, it's one more reason to be thankful for the miracle that is ``King Kong.''

Glenn Whipp, [phone]

glenn.whipp(at)dailynews.com

KING KONG - Four stars

(PG-13: frightening adventure violence, some disturbing images)

Starring: Naomi Watts, Adrien Brody, Jack Black, Andy Serkis.

Director: Peter Jackson.

Running time: 3 hr. 7 min.

Playing: Midnight screenings tonight in select theaters. Opens in wide release Wednesday.

In a nutshell: Peter Jackson delivers the Great Ape with a dazzling combination of spectacle and soul. It's so far ahead of other fantasy-adventure movies that comparisons are irrelevant.

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Photo:

The title ape and a struggling actress (Naomi Watts) share a moment in ``King Kong.''