"King Kong" is an exciting but uneven adventure film that manages to dazzle the senses. The fight scenes and special effects are extraordinary, but the ho-hum story and characterizations are nothing special.

"King Kong" suffers from what I call "Titanic" syndrome. It’s one of those films with a completely routine opening and a brilliant last half.

The first "King Kong" is a classic, and the new version can never hope to inspire the same sense of surprise. Even if someone invented a perfect wheel, it would not be as impressive as the initial discovery of the wheel.

Talented New Zealand-born director Peter Jackson was at the helm for this new "King Kong." He made a half-dozen great special effects dominated films including "Dead Alive," "Bad Taste," and of course the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. "King Kong" is slicker and more professional than those films but it’s also a little less creative.

Two terrific actors are the featured leads: Adrien Brody (of "The Pianist") and Naomi Watts (of "Mulholland Drive" and "21 Grams"). But both of them are wasted in one-dimensional parts that could’ve been played by anyone.

The love story between their characters doesn’t work at all. Perversely, there is more chemistry between Watts as Ann and the computer generated Kong than between her and her human love interest.

The film begins when an ambitious director, Carl Denham (Jack Black) asks for money to shoot a motion picture on an undiscovered island. But he finds out that the bottom-line corporate heads are going to turn him down. He decides to leave on a ship before they can end the project and crush his dream. He tricks or manipulates a whole crew into setting sail with him.

This includes a smart screenplay writer named Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody), a weepy would be actress, Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts), and Bruce Baxter, a dashing, vain leading man (Kyle Chandler). None of the characters are especially appealing or well developed. The film is boring until the ship crashes on the uncharted Skull Island.

The creatures on the island are much more sinister and horrifying than anything in the original. The animals are not that lifelike and the most menacing features, like the teeth and claws, are unnaturally large to make them look more dangerous.

The man-sized leeches that chomp on the heads of the crewmembers are particularly disturbing and disgusting. Little tykes watching the film may loose some sleep after seeing these creatures. The Tyrannosaurus Rexes that fight Kong are also quite fearsome. Their mouths are so big that they look like they can swallow Cadillacs.

One of the members on the ship is reading Joseph Conrad’s "Heart of Darkness," and it’s fitting because "King Kong" also includes some racism and stereotyping. The natives in the film are depicted as nothing but barbaric, murderous savages. The computer animated ape seems more human and sympathetic than the natives played by real people.

The film has some great moments. When Kong playfully slides around on an ice rink holding Ann the film achieves an exquisite kind of visual poetry. And viewers will also not want to miss Kong’s terrific fight against the airplanes atop the Empire State building.

The new "King Kong" does not equal the original, but it is a vast improvement over the tacky 1970s version. It’s a tasty piece of cinematic cotton candy, but people hungering for a more substantial meal should look elsewhere.