Theme Park Attraction Review: King Kong 360 3-D

The King has returned to Universal Studios Hollywood.

Two years ago, a massive fire swept through the Studios' outdoor sets and destroyed a majority of the backlot, including the King Kong attraction that was one of the highlights of the studio's famous tram tour.  According to Universal Studios President and COO Ron Meyer, the outpouring of concern for the loss of Kong was immediate and massive, with e-mails and phone calls pouring in from all over the world.  By the end of the day the fire had struck, Universal management had already decided they needed to construct another Kong attraction as part of the backlot rebuilding.

That new Kong attraction, titled King Kong 360 3-D and based on Peter Jackson's 2005 film, is now officially open. This time, instead of entering a lavishly themed downtown set inside a soundstage wherein a giant robotic Kong snarls and jiggles around, the trams head into a much smaller building and park between two large, IMAX-style screens. 3-D footage is projected onto these screens while the trams buck and tilt to coincide with the action. Riders are given 3-D glasses before boarding the trams (just be careful not to lose them along the rest of the tram ride).

The effect is not as seamless as I'd hoped, and thus not as "intense" as the advertising purports, but King Kong 360 3-D is still a very fun experience, just so long as you know how best to view it.

I've had the opportunity to ride the new Kong attraction twice--once in the middle of the third tram car, and again in the front left corner of the second. My experiences were very different and I'd like to provide you, dear reader, with some tips to help you enjoy the experience as best you can.

My first trip to "Skull Island" left me a little unimpressed as I found the experience a bit too overwhelming. There is constant action occurring all around the tram and I kept shifting my focus from one side to the other and back again, trying in vain to catch everything that was going on. I was trying to soak up everything and ended up absorbing little.

Let me put it this way: there is simply too much going on to catch everything in one ride-through. To put it in Disney ride terms, imagine trying to watch all the screens in a Circle-Vision movie while riding in a bucking Indiana Jones Adventure car. Much of the action in King Kong 360 3-D seems unfocused, trying to reward those who look in any given direction at any given time, yet the result is kind of a jumbled mess of action that constantly bombards your senses and, after my first ride, left me in a bit of a muddle.

Article Author: Sombrero Grande

This writer is a member of The Masked Movie Snobs, a collective that fights a never-ending battle against bad entertainment.

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