That's a good thing, considering how stunningly artificial the dinos and such look here (which raises the question I've always wondered about the original King Kong from 1933: Did audiences ever think there was anything realistically scary about the herky-jerky stop-motion effects of the classic Kong, who lumbered about with all the grace of a Wallace & Gromit cartoon?). What is impressive about this trailer is the post-Jurassic Park realization that when dinosaurs did roam the earth, they were most likely nimble lizard-like creatures who attacked with terrifying speed, rather than the slow-moving animatronic monsters we've come to expect from Hollywood horror movies. The dinos in this trailer make Spielberg's raptors look downright cuddly by comparison (and these hi-res screen caps of Kong and the T-rex reveal detail that just doesn't translate in the online trailer).

Ferocious as this little bugger comes across, he doesn't look even remotely convincing. Who knows, maybe that artificiality is intentional and will actually prove to be part of the film's charm (the way it did for Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, which shares some of Kong's deco flair), but I can't help feeling apprehensive. The good news here is that this is a true remake of the original King Kong, which means we won't be seeing Kong astride the Trade Center buildings the way he appeared in the 1976 debacle.

Of course, Jackson's trailer withholds the money shot atop the Empire State Building, although it does begin with an overhead view of the 1930s New York skyline, in which the skyscraper towers above the city, awaiting Kong's arrival (by the way, I call it "Jackson's trailer" because the studio gave him final cut over the preview, a privilege reserved for very few directors and stars). Like any good teaser, it starts off slow and builds to a frenzy (making sure along the way to demonstrate that, yes, this is a kissing movie).

You can tell Jackson takes the original seriously because he includes classic scenes like the one in which Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts in the Fay Wray role) steals an apple from the fruit stand. It might look like a bit of schmaltzy Cinderella Man-style Depression-era scene setting to the uninitated, but that's the same device that brings Fay Wray and Robert Armstrong together in the original. He also maintains Ann's reason for visiting Skull Island (in 1933, when practically all films were still being shot on studio soundstages, Jack Black's movie-director character is hungry for a fresh location, taking the young starlet and his crew to "a place that was thought to exist only in myth"). Shooting on the island's jagged shore, Jack Black orders Naomi Watts to scream for her life, to which Kong responds with a thunderous roar.

But already trouble is brewing. Jackson is reverting back to his campy pre-LOTR style, with canted angles (the camera held diagonally), goofy wide angles (a lens that gives everything a cartoonishly distorted appearance) and funky-colored gels (which makes certain scenes appear artifically blue or amber). Just imagine how Spider-Man would have looked if Sam Raimi had stuck to the B-movie tricks of his Evil Dead days, and yet, I fear that's what Jackson may be doing here.

Keep in mind, for a teaser trailer released seven months before the movie opens, this one answers quite a few of our early questions, namely: What will Kong look like? I'm not overly impressed with the ape's physicaly appearance, but his movement is truly revolutionary. Consider the scene in which he tussles with the T-rex, grabbing a panic-stricken Ann from a tree and holding her just out of reach of the dino's snatching jaws. That's Andy Serkis (who played Gollum) acting out Kong's movement, and it looks entirely realistic (for instance, the leap looks real when Kong crushes the old car, even if the effects do not). But it's clear that Jackson also has a soft spot for the awkward animation of the original. How else to explain the (deliberately clumsy) shot in which Kong reaches in from screen left to pluck Ann from the ledge?