Oh yeah, its all those Oscars he got. I forgot.
Saw it on opening night. It's completely different from the original in terms of script. Same locations and characters and all, but it's vastly improved and expanded. There wasn't one thing from that movie that should have been cut, Jackson knows what he's doing. If had been shorter, the pacing would have been ruined.
I find CGI annoying, and unrefined. The effects were incredible, and Serkis doing Kong was truly great, down to every last facial expression, I just still can't shake the unrealism of it all. Don't get me wrong, compared to every other CGI movie out there, Kong is top notch. But yeah, there are scenes they didn't need to use it. Like when Darrow touches Kong's arms and stuff in closeup it becomes very blatanly CGI just the way the light doesn't fall on it quite right. Who knows, maybe they ran out of money to buy props or something.