If this picture had a love interest, it'd gross twice as much.

The meta plot of making an adventure movie, the awkward colonialism, the perfunctory romance, all pale in comparison to the sheer spectacle of the King Kong scenes. A harbinger of today's effects dominating blockbusters, King Kong has an advantage over the likes of the Avengers movies. The special effects here look fake — I never doubted that I was looking at a furry model — but it seems real. Perhaps because it's grounded in brutal violence. When a jaw is ripped open, a scream suddenly silenced, a body crushed underfoot: we hear it, we see it, we feel it.

If you want to, you can find sympathy for the beast, but the script never quiets connect the dots to make something truly subversive. It's B-movie plot through and through.