
King Kong
4.1
(604)
Adventure
Fantasy
Horror
1933
104 min
NR
Adventurous filmmaker Carl Denham sets out to produce a motion picture unlike anything the world has seen before. Alongside his leading lady Ann Darrow and his first mate Jack Driscoll, they arrive on an island and discover a legendary creature said to be neither beast nor man. Denham captures the monster to be displayed on Broadway as King Kong, the eighth wonder of the world.
Starring:
Fantasy
Horror
Thriller
Adventure
Action
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"Okay when I was watching this movie and I am still puzzled how did they freaking pull this off in the 1930s. The fight scenes were some of the best I have ever seen even considering modern remakes. The ending line to this movie is honestly one of the best ending lines I have ever heard In a movie. My children even watch this with me and they are 7 and 8 they think black and white films are for ancient people and they were captivated the entire time. This is a must watch"
"Unfortunately the dialogue may be misogynistic, but what really makes this movie an important part of history (to me and others) mainly due to the effects that they did. While heavily dated today, for 1933? Futuristic and impossible. Stupendous. They did it. No wonder Kong got so many copycats.
A huge recommend especially to any film buffs of the sort."
"King Kong is on the short list of classic fantasy movies. It's easy to see why it was a hit at the time. It was a major visual spectacle. The effects are incredible for the time of the movie's original release. The acting is also very solid for the time, considering where the art was in its development. The script, however, is lacking. This is one of those movies that presents itself as having a lot to say, but that, ultimately, does not. The only real theme to the movie is tied up in Driscoll's talk about beauty and the beast. And this could be taken to have some meaning for the viewer, that finding love takes the bite and fight out of a man. However, this really isn't much of a point, especially when the story includes a romantic subplot. One clever thing about the script is that Driscoll comments that romance is thrown into scripts in order to increase box office returns, seeming to imply that somebody involved in the film's production thought that the romance was unnecessary, and was thrown in to sell tickets.
I try to avoid judging books and movies based on the sensibilities of our current time compared to the time at which the work was made. However, the depiction of the black natives of Skull Island as backwards, savage worshipers of Kong, and the depiction of the Chinese cook who struggled with the subjective case did hamper my enjoyment of the film. If these are not issues for you, I will not think that you are a bad person. I will not think that they should be issues for you. They were just hang ups for me, personally, contrary to my own beliefs on how we should judge historical works.
All that said, I did ultimately enjoy it for what it was, which is an early blockbuster. However, I do feel that its status as a de facto classic has resulted in it being more fondly remembered than it deserves to be. It is, in my opinion, the Avatar of its day. I give it 7 machine gun equipped biplanes out of 10, but if the effects were a little worse, it'd be 6."