Carl Denham, a filmmaker, wants to go to a hidden and mysterious island. In order to finish his film, he feels that he needs a woman, and finds one by the name of Ann Darrow. Once they arrive on the mysterious island, they are met by a bunch of formidable natives who may or may not want to kill them. Outside of their village, however, there is far worse: creatures of many kinds, as well as the legendary giant ape, Kong, eventually known as King Kong.

And without a doubt, whether you like this movie or not, there is absolutely no denying how influential it is; it’s a classic for a reason. The stop motion effects, though done before in other films, became a lot more mainstream here, and for what they are and the time they came out, they are honestly quite impressive. All of the creatures are interesting, and the way they move and interact with the environment, though absolutely dated by today’s standards, is pretty fascinating to say the least. The filmmakers also did a really good job of blending stop-motion effects and creature effects with real-life environments and people. Yes, you can see the seams, but again, considering when this was made, it impressed me quite a bit. The action in King Kong was also surprisingly gruesome, something I definitely wasn’t expecting.

This movie also does a fantastic job with its visual storytelling, particularly when it comes to Kong himself. I wasn’t all that invested in the character, to be honest, because all he pretty much did whenever he was onscreen was destroy everything and kill everyone, but I at least understood him. There is very little to no dialogue whenever the humans interact with him, mainly Ann, and the film does a great job of getting you to understand his curiosity and why he does what he does.

I was also a big fan of the island, or Skull Island as it has since been called (I don’t recall them ever calling it that in the film, though, just Skull Mountain). It was surprisingly immersive, which I think had a lot to do with the black-and-white hiding a lot of details that would have otherwise broken the immersion, but still, I believed well enough that they were, in fact, on this mysterious island full of all sorts of different creatures. There were even some special effects, mainly when it came to the blending of stop motion and real people, as well as sets that I talked about earlier, where I honestly have no idea how they did them.

For as much of a classic as King Kong is, it’s not without flaws or things that have dated in a not-so-good way. Firstly, the human characters weren’t interesting at all, and I honestly couldn’t have cared less about them. Carl, the filmmaker, is never revealed to have any compelling motivations, Ann is kind of just there to be Kong’s victim, and finally, there is a romance subplot with Ann and another character that is completely rushed and not very well written at all, even by the standards of the time this movie came out.

The thing that dates this movie the most, though, and it’s something that a lot of films from this era unfortunately have, are the racial implications and stereotypes. The whole tribe is composed of Africans, and let’s just say they aren’t portrayed in a very good way at all. Even if the tribe wasn’t all African actors, it still would have been slightly offensive and off-putting because it kind of paints real-world tribes in the very stereotypical way that a lot of older films have. Even aside from that, though, there is a line that someone says near the end that is, if none of the other stuff was, definitely racist towards black people.

I had a decent enough time with the original King Kong, though, for the most part. Yes, it was probably just because of being mesmerized by how dated and old it is, but it was still fun nonetheless. The creature designs were great, the stop motion was solid, and the characterization of King Kong was decent. It’s not a classic for being one of the best movies ever made or anything even somewhat remotely like that, but I would say it is a classic in the sense of how revolutionary it was for special effects, mainly stop motion, which obviously eventually led to computer-generated effects like we see all the time nowadays.