Andy Serkis: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

2. Kong - King Kong (2005)

As Peter Jackson's reputation has taken several hits, first with The Lovely Bones and more recently with The Hobbit, critics and commentators have been looking through his back catalogue to see where the rot had started. While some would point to the ending of The Return of the King as the point where he began to over-indulge himself, most would settle on King Kong, a remake which managed to be twice at long as the original while telling broadly the same story. But whatever you may think about the film as a whole, there can be little doubt that Serkis' performance as Kong is quite extraordinary. In case you've never seen any version of the story, King Kong is a monster movie set during the Great Depression in America. After vaudeville actress Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) loses her job, she is recruited by filmmaker Carl Denham (Jack Black) to be in his new film. She joins a filming expedition to Skull Island, accompanied by Denham and playwright Jack Driscoll (Adrian Brody). Once at the island they encounter the giant gorilla Kong, whom Denham brings back to America with tragic results. Considering Serkis' involvement in the new Planet of the Apes films, you could joke that he's been typecast as a monkey. But while the technology used to create Kong was broadly similar to that used on Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, he has always brought a unique personality to each of the motion capture roles he has undertaken. He imbues the extraordinary special effect with genuine emotional range, lending weight to the elaborate CGI and making the quieter moments feel intimate. Certainly, he's a lot more life-like than his black-and-white counterpart.