20 Years Later, Peter Jackson’s First Film After Lord of the Rings Is Still the Greatest Monster Movie of the 2000s

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Beginning with 2001’s Fellowship of the Ring, Peter Jackson turned himself into modern cinematic royalty through his adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. Widely regarded as the gold standard of epic fantasy, the movies proved his skills in the realm of visual immersion and storytelling. Although the director is still synonymous with his treatment of Middle-earth, his first film, after Return of the King, is the greatest monster movie of the 2000s.

When Peter Jackson adapted The Lord of the Rings to the big screen, one of the things he was most praised for was the visual side of the experience. Through a combination of well-crafted, detailed costumes, stunning sets, and fantastic CGI, the film earned high praise for being one of the most impressive productions in cinema history. Following his success with the trilogy, he moved on to adapt a classic monster movie for modern audiences, and the end result was every bit as impressive. In an era where monster cinema rakes in billions at the box office, Jackson’s 2005 epic paved the way for that success and arguably hasn’t been topped since.

Peter Jackson Helped Revive The Age Of Kaiju Cinema

He Proved Monsters Could Be Better Than The 1998 Godzilla

In 1998, Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin reunited after Independence Day for their treatment of Godzilla. After the character had been in the hands of Japanese filmmakers for decades, American audiences had high hopes for what Hollywood’s big budgets and special effects could do. This was particularly true in the wake of Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park movies, which firmly raised expectations for blockbuster monster cinema. Unfortunately, what moviegoers got was one of the biggest disappointments of the decade in what has gone down as one of the most universally panned monster films ever made. With a poorly animated monster, lackluster characters, and a bad story, its modest box office haul wasn’t enough to justify a sequel, despite one being teased.

Before Jackson’s King Kong, American monster movies had largely been relegated to the realm of low-budget creature features and B-movies. While modern audiences have a wealth of great Kaiju films from Legendary’s Monsterverse, fans in the mid-2000s only had the likes of Tremors, Lake Placid, and Anaconda. After all, outside of Jurassic Park, the ’90s had been dominated by the success of mid-budget crime movies, 3D animated family movies, and epic dramas like Titanic and Forrest Gump. When Tristar did pursue a Godzilla film, it was an enormous financial risk, and while it did turn a healthy profit, it underperformed studio expectations. As critics savaged the film’s quality, high-budget monster movies were placed on ice, and Hollywood explored other genres until 2005.

When Jackson’s film was finally released in 2005, it came with wide critical acclaim, with many praising its performances, visual effects, and treatment of the source material. Where monster movies made before had been full of cheap and tacky effects, bad humor, and little in the way of real suspense, he raised the bar for what people could expect moving forward. Here, fans had an exceptionally talented cast, including Adrien Brody, Naomi Watts, Jamie Bell, Kyle Chandler, and Jack Black, as well as a story that nailed the adventure genre.

Peter Jackson Turned In An Old-School Adventure Movie

The Director Channeled Golden Age Cinema

Considering the fact King Kong dates back to 1933, and Jackson was keen to make a period piece out of his film, it should only be natural that his story borrows much from history. Set at the height of the Great Depression, it follows an aspiring actress named Ann Darrow as she boards a ship bound for an exotic location to shoot the latest picture of director Carl Denham. Unknown to the rest of the cast and crew, however, Denham is leading everyone on an expedition to Skull Island, having found a map of the island. When they arrive, they encounter the island’s natives, who abduct Ann as an offering to Kong. In turn, the crew, led by a screenwriter, Jack Driscoll, who has fallen in love with her, sets out to rescue her.

As the rescue party ventures deeper into the island’s interior, they come across its inhabitants, including several species of dinosaur. As Ann tries to entertain her gorilla captor to stay alive, she too has an encounter with T. Rex-like creatures, while the rest of the crew battle giant insects and velociraptors. When they finally reach Ann, Denham and the captain attack Kong with a large supply of chloroform, rendering him unconscious long enough to sail him back to New York. There, the director turns him into an attraction, dubbing him the Eighth Wonder of the World. Naturally, the powerful ape soon breaks free from captivity and roams around the city in search of his treasured Ann. When he finds her, he takes her back into his care but is soon forced to the top of the Empire State Building as the military begins its attack.

It could easily be argued that, as opinions soured on the Jurassic Park sequels, Jackson’s King Kong has every right to claim the mantle of the second-greatest dinosaur movie after the ’93 Spielberg masterpiece. While these creatures aren’t the key focus of the film, they make it so much more entertaining, even incorporating elements of films like The Lost World. Throughout the story, the audience gets the best of both worlds; a story ripped from the glory days of Hollywood with the direction and effects of the modern age.

King Kong Is A Refreshing Contrast To Modern Monster Movies

Jackson Gave Audiences A Stunning Adventure

While Legendary’s treatment of Kaiju like Godzilla, King Kong, and Mothra has made for an entertaining franchise, it’s hard to avoid comparisons to Jackson’s 2005 movie. Today, audiences are primed to expect their monster movies to be dark, obscuring the creatures for much of the runtime. In King Kong, audiences were treated to a bright, crisp showcase of Kong, dinosaurs, giant insects, and other monsters from start to finish. As enjoyable as the modern blockbusters might be, seeing these creatures in all their glory in a more adventure-driven setting needs to make a comeback.

In a sense, King Kong made up for 1998’s Godzilla, with the striking visuals being the first point of comparison. After audiences had seen a version of the King of Monsters that looked like a bad video game, witnessing a monster that looked as real as the human actors helped lend legitimacy to monster movies. Building on the special effects used to make Lord of the Rings such a success, the film paved the way for the likes of the Planet of the Apes revival and Legendary’s Monsterverse. Thanks to the blend of good character development, an immersive, captivating story, and unparalleled visual effects, Jackson’s story hasn’t yet been surpassed as a testament to what a good monster movie should be.

Jackson's Film Shows How To Blend Monsters And Adventure

The Characters Are Treated Better Than in Most Monster Films

Ultimately, the monster genre works best when it casts its heroes into an adventure story, allowing them to explore lands like Hollow Earth and Skull Island. Too often, modern cinema fails to give human characters a good story in Kaiju-style films, sending them on contrived missions more akin to a sci-fi Tom Clancy story. In Jackson’s King Kong, audiences were given something far more in the vein of an Indiana Jones story for the heroes than what happens in monster films of the 2020s. As great as the casts of films like King of the Monsters might be, the characters’ stories simply aren’t as interesting as filmmakers struggle to find something for them to do. It’s no wonder that the most interesting character stories of the Monsterverse can be found in 2017’s Kong: Skull Island, which is very much an adventure story.

Twenty years later, the 2005 monster movie has started to go more overlooked, not quite capturing the same lasting power of movies like Jurassic Park. In a world where monster movies can be all flash and no substance, Peter Jackson showed the genre can have the best of both worlds and earn the praise of critics and fans alike. Going from Lord of the Rings to King Kong in just two years gave the director one of the most epic runs in modern cinema, and more monster movies could learn a thing or two from this masterpiece.