KING KONG

The most telling detail in Peter Jackson's grand, overlong, monstrously enjoyable King Kong remake is, considering the scope of this production, a relatively minor one. Having been captured by the natives of Skull Island, the ingénue Ann (Naomi Watts) is presented - tied and shrieking - as a sacrifice/gift to the enormous ape, who emerges from the jungle, frees Ann from her bindings, and grasps her in his giant paw. (Kong doesn't grace the scene until roughly an hour into the movie, and the moments leading up to his arrival are a miracle of sound design and visual suggestion; Kong's appearance is absolutely worth waiting for.) Like a petulant toddler who doesn't want to share his toy, Kong quickly races back to his jungle retreat with his new plaything in hand, and the force and velocity of the ape's movements make Ann resemble nothing so much as a human rag doll, her body limp and her limbs flailing.

THE RING TWO

After sitting through the lifeless horror sequel The Ring Two, the only thing I wanted - besides a major jolt of caffeine to wake me up - was a towel. What is up with all the freakin' water in this movie? With the exceptions of Ariel in The Little Mermaid and Esther Williams in anything, I can't think of a leading actress who spends as much screen time soaked as Naomi Watts does in this half-hearted follow-up to 2002's The Ring.

SHAUN OF THE DEAD, THE GRUDGE, and SAW

Halloween has come and gone, but three horror flicks are currently in theaters and - surprise! - two of them are actually good.

SCARY MOVIE 3

With Scary Movie 3, the assignment of directing has been passed from Keenen Ivory Wayans to Airplane!'s David Zucker, which is a big step forward right there. (Zucker isn't much of a director, either, but at least he has ideas on how to shape a scene, and is actually pretty adept at making his film parodies look like the films they're parodying.) Plus, any time Zucker and company are satirizing the outrageous pomposity of M. Night Shymalan, whose Signs receives - and deserves - particularly harsh treatment here, Scary Movie 3 is everything you want a movie spoof to be: smart, funny, and more than a little mean. (And heartening - until now, I thought I was the only one who detested Shymalan's "Hitchcockian" appearance as the vet who accidentally kills Mel Gibson's wife in Signs.) The wide-eyed, appealing Anna Faris returns as the lead, ably satirizing Naomi Watts' reporter from The Ring, and comic actors such as Charlie Sheen, Jeremy Piven, Queen Latifah, Camryn Manheim, and legendary spoofster Leslie Nielsen all score some laughs. So why is Scary Movie 3 still so disappointing?