There's another remake (of a King Kong ripoff, IIRC) that managed to do much better: "Mighty Joe Young" had a pretty decent CGI monkey, and as far as I remember the story worked pretty well, too. That was actually a remake the world needed. I never understood why Jackson had to remake King Kong, whose original version is still rather watchable, and which was re-made in the 70ies also... there are other movies that are in need of a remake much more...