King Kong (1933) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

It also receives 100% positive reviews at IMDb, and the online comments about this film look approximately like the comments about Jesus at an agape.

So is it truly a great movie, to provoke such enthusiasm? No, not at all.

It was a major cultural event and a great technical achievement in 1933 (maybe - see the Variety review below), but there's nothing worthwhile watching today unless you are studying the history of filmmaking. Historically, it is extremely important, as important as Citizen Kane or Birth of a Nation. The film includes iconography that has become integral to the history of film as a medium, and everyone who loves movies can picture Kong atop the Empire State Building, or holding Fay Wray in his hands.

But ...

Although King Kong is historically important, it is very tedious work to watch the film today, a task roughly equivalent to reading Moby Dick in order to study the history of the American novel  - necessary, but not pleasurable.

The problems?

• The creatures and the special effects, which were undoubtedly impressive in 1933, are laughable today. Variety's contemporary review pointed out that some of it was even laughable in 1933:

There are times when the plot takes advantage of its imaginative status and goes too far. On these occasions the customers are liable to laugh in the wrong way. A most tolerant audience at the Music Hall broke down now and then, but on the whole was exceedingly kind. It seemed that while a few details were too strong to swallow the picture, as a whole, got them.

• The creature battles not only look fake, but they go on much too long and are repetitive.

• The damned ape keeps changing size!

• The acting is as bad as you'll see in any movie among the Top 250. I can say without exaggeration that it is not up to the standards of the Three Stooges shorts. (In fact, if you look closely, you'll see many of the same extras working with Kong and the Stooges.)

• The portrayal of dark-skinned people is approximately as subtle as the portrayal of Japanese soldiers in a wartime Bugs Bunny cartoon.

• Although the film receives a perfect 100% at Rotten Tomatoes, the contemporary reviews were not gushing. Variety declared:

It takes a couple of reels for ‘Kong’ to be believed, and until then it doesn’t grip. But after the audience becomes used to the machine-like movements and other mechanical flaws in the gigantic animals on view, and become accustomed to the phony atmosphere, they may commence to feel the power. As the story background is constantly implausible, the mechanical end must fight its own battle for audience confidence.

Fay Wray is the blonde who’s chased by Kong, grabbed twice, but finally saved. It’s a 96-minute screaming session for her, too much for any actress and any audience. With the blonde still screaming while in Kong’s palm atop the Empire state, after having screamed all the way from the first reel, another of the unbelievable facts is that Kong shouldn’t drop her and look for a non-screamer — even if he has to settle for a brunet. The light hair is a change for Miss Wray. Robert Armstrong, as the explorer, and Bruce Cabot, as the blonde’s other boy friend who doesn’t make her scream, are the remaining principal characters and are snowed under by the technical end.

As for the plot and editing - they often make no sense at all. I used to find this movie confusing and lacking in credibility when I was ten. First of all, when the ship arrives at an isolated, legendary island - it turns out that the captain can speak their isolated, legendary language. I suppose he took a legendary language minor at the Merchant Marine Academy, and I suppose he can speak every language in the world, since nobody knew in advance which language the natives would speak, or even if the island really existed at all. Then, the film simply skips over the problems of how the men got Kong on the ship, how they shackled him, and how they fed him on the trip back. One minute the giant Kong is prostrate on an island, then the next minute he has a one-ape show on Broadway in the next theater down from Jolson. Oh, yeah, then when he gets loose in New York, one of the world's most populous cities, he manages to find Fay Wray within minutes.

You know what is truly amazing to me about the critical comments about this movie? On a scale of 1 to 100, it's approximately a 10. Taken out of its historical context, it is not just a bad movie, but an abomination, one of the worst films you will ever see, maybe the worst unless you specifically make an effort to see bad movies. It is difficult to find even one good thing to say about the film - and yet the reviews are 100% positive! Talk about the ultimate Naked Emperor! To be brutally honest, you could get together with your friends, write a better script, and do better F/X on your PC. Moreover, you and your friends would probably be better actors than the people in this film, unless you hang around with Tom Green.

The new two-disk DVD, however, is tremendous. The original version of the film is now available, with all the censored scenes worked back into the film. Well, to be completely honest, it's almost the original version. The deleted/censored material is now fully restored except for the lost "spider sequence," which is covered in detail in a separate documentary. That gruesome sequence was shown only on opening night, and was subsequently deleted by the director himself.

The DVD even includes a commentary track by dead people - like the director and Fay Wray! Clever how they did that, although the director sounds like he's on an old-time 78 recording of a man shouting into a canyon! In addition to the two hours of film with the optional commentary track, there is another two and a half hours of documentary material about the movie, and yet another documentary on director Merian C. Cooper, who was as colorful a character as the Carl Denham character in the movie. Cooper not only wrote and directed, but even flew the plane that shot Kong off the Empire State Building!