Review: King Kong Has Earned It's Place In History.
- Mar 6, 2017
- 2 min read
20 years before a giant, radioactive lizard terrorised Tokyo, there was Kong, the original king of the monsters. King Kong is not only one of the greatest cinematic achievements ever but one of the most influential films to this very day.
Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) is an overly enthusiastic director, so much so that some might consider him to be mad. But he's not a man to let an opportunity got to waste and, after coming across a map to an island lost to history, he sets out to make the greatest movie ever filmed, all he needs is a lead actress. Enter Anne Darrow, played by Fay Wray, young, beautiful and most importantly, broke. She jumps at the prospect of an acting job and so begins an adventure of ancient tribes, giant monsters and unexpected love.
King Kong is an undeniable classic, and for good reason. Not only does it showcase some excellent special effects in the stop motion department, a duel between Kong and a T-Rex being the standout, but it established a genre that lives on to this day. But, for all it's monsters and it's enormous impact, it's not a perfect film and has some failings when viewed through modern eyes.
The biggest problem is the characters who, aside from Kong himself, are mostly underdeveloped and rushed. At an hour and forty minutes, there's more than enough time to establish more than a single trait for the main cast. Denham is overly zealous, Darrow is just attractive, the love interest, Jack Driscoll (Bruce Cabot) is tough. A romance between Anne and Jack appears literally between scenes, one that exists purely for story telling reasons, one without purpose or reason. But the biggest flaw, and one that almost breaks the film, is Kong's close ups. Displaying the tombstone teeth and mad eyes may have been frightening over 50 years ago but today it's laughably bad.
But these problems, blatant though they may be, fail to detract from the film overall. With s solid portion dedicated to sailors being slain by stop motion monstrosities and Kong battling all manner of freakish adversary, there's plenty of action. The story too, is a timeless one, a tale of a beautiful women taming the raw nature of a misunderstood beast. The greatest of praise must go to the animators who, through copious time and effort, brought like to what is essentially a big doll. Kong emotes like a man but roars like a beast and is engrossing right to the bittersweet finale.
In the end, King Kong is an entertaining film, if not a perfect one. While some features don't quite hold up, after almost a hundred years, it's to be expected. It's worth watching, even just to see where it all began.
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