Ryan Conde’s review published on Letterboxd:
The first-ever King Kong movie and to absolutely no one it is very entertaining from beginning to end. However, that doesn't mean that it is flawless. As much as I enjoyed this I also had some big problems with it. The story is pretty predictable, the pacing can get a little slow in some moments, there are some things that I felt were pretty much pointless and not needed, there is some very dated stuff that honestly kind of made me feel a bit weird while watching it, and the effects can look really bad sometimes. I know that this was made in the early 1930s and I'm sure that at the time it was very impressive and even game-changing but watching the special effects today they do look pretty bad. Thankfully though while the film has a lot of problems it still does have a lot of things to praise about. The story is still well-told despite it being predictable, the cinematography is great, the musical score is fantastic, the direction is solid, the characters are memorable enough for me to like, the effects while I said look bad for the most part can sometimes look good and again it is impressive to see what the filmmakers were able to do at the time period, there are many intense and suspenseful moments, the stop-motion animation was pretty neat even if it doesn't always look that great, and the acting is really good from everyone and is one of the main standouts of the film. So while I wouldn't call the movie the masterpiece that many other people do I still really enjoyed it for what it is. I also can't deny that the movie itself has left a big legacy and impact on film and cinema as a whole for many right reasons. If you still haven't seen this film yet then I would say to see it at least once in your life. I may not love it but it still gave me a lot of entertaining stuff to watch and that is enough for me to call it a good film.