(Review originally written at 8 February 2008)
The movie is still very exciting to watch, which is quite unusual for a movie that is 75 year old. Normally these old type of adventure movies are sort of clumsy made and silly to view but "King Kong" is genuine exciting, tense and entertaining. It easily is still one of the most entertaining movies ever made. Can you just imaging how people must have experienced this movie back in 1933. It must have been an amazing experience. The first halve of the movie is mostly used to build up the tension and whole mystery of the Kong character. The beast doesn't show up until well halve way through the movie. And of course when he finally does make his appearance, the movie gets all the better, exciting adventurous, not in the least thanks to its fine early special effects. The movie then really turns into some non-stop entertainment, when the crew and also Kong battle all kinds of different and large and dangerous looking other creatures on Skull Island.
The movie is not only made adventurous by just its story or the character of Kong and other large creatures that show up and its special effects but also thanks to its exotic settings and grand looking original sets.
Of course the movie gets all the more spectacular from the moment they leave Skull Island and bring Kong with them back to New York. Just when you think you have seen it all and the movie can't get any better and bigger, the New York finale comes. Not hard to see why the Empire State Building sequences is such a classic one. It's more than just a sequence, it over the years has sort of become a movie icon.
It's a highly original movie, especially for 1933, because of course of its concept of having a giant ape as the movie its central character. It makes this a very unique movie. It's a movie that created a whole new sort of genre. Monster movies weren't new but having an 15 feet-like monster, causing a total mayhem and leaves a path of destruction sure was something new.
The movie also works our highly effective thanks to its fine musical score by Max Steiner, which is sort of underrated.
The acting and dialog is at times sort of silly and bad. Yes, even for 1933 standards. It's perhaps the only real thing that isn't perfect about this movie. Especially Bruce Cabot is quite dreadful and Fay Wray might had been a great scream-queen but she wasn't a real great actress. The best performance is given by Robert Armstrong who plays the movie director Carl Denham.
Kong is truly still king, on his 75th anniversary!
10/10
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