With a lot of these movies that are considered “classics,” I like to include some information in my review about the production of how it was all made, because this tends to let people have a higher appreciation for how good the film may be. I feel that I can’t do this with King Kong, though, because there’s so much interesting information to include that it would overtake a lot of the review. Honestly, entire essays could be written on the production of this movie, and it still wouldn’t do justice to how revolutionary this movie was. This is one of the most groundbreaking films of all time, and I want to make it clear that I really respect it for that. However, I want to leave that kind of praise to other reviewers, and instead talk about how I felt watching the movie for the first time in a modern age.

Let’s talk about the story first. Basically, the movie centers around a film crew that’s going to a tropical island to shoot a movie. A lot of plot development happens in the first act, but the good stuff starts to kick in when the crew discovers Kong, a giant ape that rules over the island. Kong takes an interest in Ann, the female star of the movie. So, he steals her away, and it’s up to the rest of the crew to try to get her back and capture Kong. If I’m being honest, the plot itself is the least interesting thing about the movie. Things really start to kick in after Kong is discovered, but there’s a good 40 minutes or so at the start of the movie that just centers around the film crew, and to be honest it’s not all that interesting. The movie moves very slow in the first act, and if I have one criticism of the movie, it’s this. I found it to be a bit of a slog at first, but once it kicks in, it’s worth it.

Without a doubt, the best reason to see King Kong is for the special effects. I had an interesting thought while watching the movie about the idea of effects “holding up” over time. Usually when people say that a movie “holds up,” they’re saying that it can still impress you even today. An example of this is Jurassic Park came out over 25 years ago, and yet the dinosaurs still look pretty realistic in that movie. So, when I say that the special effects of King Kong “hold up well,” I don’t mean it in that traditional sense. I think anyone who says that the effects still look realistic here is lying, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t still impress you. For a movie’s effects to not hold up, I think that there has to be some modern example we see in movies to compare it to. An easy example of this is that we still use CGI for many special effects nowadays, and so if you watch a movie from in the early days of CGI from the 90s, a lot of those movies just look terrible now.

However, that brings me to the brilliance of the special effects in King Kong. They just don’t make movies like this anymore, and I mean that quite literally. There’s such a great use of stop-motion animation, matte painting, rear projection, and miniatures, and it’s combined to a magnificent effect. Sure, you’ll see these kinds of special effects pop up in some movies nowadays, but it’s usually combined with more modern techniques. This is one of those few examples of how primitive techniques actually bred creativity, and so it still holds up today because of it. So, when I say that the special effects of King Kong impressed me as a modern viewer, trust me when I say I’m not being pretentious or dishonest about how great modern effects are. The movie just showed me effects that are really hard to pull off, and yet the filmmakers did so with very limited resources. This is why I feel King Kong still holds up and has the potential to impress modern viewers like myself.

Other than that, it’s hard for me to talk about a movie like King Kong since so many others have talked about it to death. It’s a movie that’s simply iconic, and I don’t like to use that word lightly. However, even if you haven’t seen the movie, you’re likely familiar with the scene of King Kong climbing the Empire State Building, and even if you’re not you’ve likely seen Kong in some capacity. The filmmakers really created an icon here that has stuck in the public conscience for the years that followed. If that isn’t a testament to the movie’s greatness, then I don’t know what is.

That basically sums up my thoughts on King Kong. I can’t in good conscience say that this is a perfect movie, because it isn’t. The movie’s first act is very slow, and so I can’t give the movie a perfect score when there was 40 minutes of it that wasn’t amazing. However, the rest of the movie more than makes up for it. Undoubtedly the reason to watch King Kong is for its special effects, which were groundbreaking at the time and still hold up pretty well nowadays. If you want to see the origin of a film icon, then check out the movie for yourself. It’s definitely still worth watching.

4.5/5