Favorite King Kong movie

[Mojo Ram]

King Kong '33
The original. B&W.
Starring Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, Bruce Cabot
Directed by Merian Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack

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King Kong 1976
Starring Jeff Bridges, Jessica Lang, Charles Grodin
Directed by John Guillermin

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King Kong 2005
Starring Naomi Watts, Jack Black, Adrian Brody
Directed by Peter Jackson

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Kong: Skull Island 2017
Starring Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L Jackson, John C Reilly, John Goodman
Directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts

 

[Akrasian]

Even with the stop motion effects, the original rules

 

[RamsSince1969]

I must say, when your movie has Dewey Cox in it, I'm "walkin hard" for the exit. Love the original!

 

[Mojo Ram]

It's Kong '76 for me. I'll try to break this down.

SPOILERS!

-Kong '76 is the first film(of any kind) i ever saw in theaters so big points there. My dad took me and i was 7 yrs old

-Kong '76 wins with best film score by John Barry. It's kind of epic.

-Kong '05 Naomi Watts get the vote for hottest Kong chick but Jessica Lang looked pretty damn good herself in the mid 70's.

-Kong '33 gets points for being outrageously badass and imaginative for it's time, but i'm just too young to fully appreciate.

-Skull Island gets points for ignoring the beauty and the beast theme altogether and doing it's own thing in the MonsterVerse.

-Kong '76 Charles Grodin gets my vote for best greedy scumbag chauvinistic protagonist dude. Jack Black in Kong '05 was decent but miscast IMO. Sam Jackson in Skull Island just played the angry Sam Jackson he always does.

-Best Kong entrance? Again i give it to Kong '76 but Skull Island was a close second.

-Best Kong exit? '33 and '05 Kong fought bi planes. Come on...
'76 Kong fought helo's with automatic heavy gunfire.

-Best island wildlife goes to '05 Kong. Dinosaurs, huge scary ass bugs. '17 Kong was a close second with a variety of strange things. This is the category where my Kong '76 fails. A big snake. That's it. Boring.

-Best leading man. Jeff fucking Bridges in '76

-Kong and Special effects. Ouch this is the tough one. '33 Kong has to be given it's due. I mean it's 1933. Quite an achievement.

WAY too much CGI for me in '05 Kong. Looks great but it also looks fake. Not a lot of on location stuff here. Looks like a video game. Kong looked like a CGI Kong would. Movie is also too long. It's fun though.

Skull island Kong goes with the CGI/practical blend. IMO the best choice in films like this these days. Shot in Vietnam. NICE. Kong looked pretty damn perfect but he wasn't real. I like the idea of being set in the 70's, the soldiers...

What can i say though? I'm old school and Rick Baker in a suit just works for me in '76 Kong, along with a few animatronic shots. Kong moves right because it's not fake. It's a man. They also got the Kong vocal right in this one. It's an angry roar and he doesn't sound like lions tigers or bears.
Kong '76 also boasts the now legendary World Trade Centers and the final resting place of the great beast.

My favorite?
#1 Kong '76
#2 Kong: Skull Island
#3 Kong '33
#4 Kong '05

 

[Loyal]

 

[FaulkSF]

Wrestlemania 3 had the best King Kong in it.

 

[TK42-RAM]

View attachment 40167

... so that's what happened to King Kong's balls.

 

[Loyal]

... so that's what happened to King Kong's balls.

They became Rocky Mountain Oysters.....Supersized...

 

[dieterbrock]

 

[XXXIVwin]

Kong '76 by far, for all the reasons mentioned in the OP

Could've used more fight scenes

And some better editing

But it packed an emotional punch

And Lange.... hubba hubba

 

[Dz1]

Thanks Mojo for putting all the years dates etc.

Liked every Kong movie.

 

[dieterbrock]

Kong '76 by far, for all the reasons mentioned in the OP

Could've used more fight scenes

And some better editing

But it packed an emotional punch

And Lange.... hubba hubba

And it featured the Twin Towers

Jessica Lange > Naomi Watts

 

[Angry Ram]

Kong 2005 is my personal favorite.

The 2017 version is a different twist, and is enjoyable. The only thing I didn't like about it was the generic "evil" bug creature things.

 

[Selassie I]

Mine is the 1933.

I vividly remember my Dad showing that one to me. I was very young... probably 4 or 5 years old. I was mesmerized. It's crazy how I still remember so much about that moment and where I was. The T-Rex scene did it for me...

 

[Selassie I]

Funny side note about this. I know my Dad showed me this to get my mind going in all kinds of directions. He had fun watching my mind try and work things out from watching this. Maybe that's why it's such a vivid memory.

When my boys were young... I had fun with them in the same way. One day I brought home all of the original Godzilla movies on DVDs. I told them that these movies were all completely real. Telling them that always made them super interested. When I put the 1st one in... they watched it for a while... then they asked me "Dad, why does the movie look like that?". They wanted to believe it was real... but the special effects obviously weren't anything special. I told them that it looked like that because it is extremely old and cameras sucked back then. I also told them that the films were rare and that most of the proof of this was all destroyed... and that we weren't even supposed to be seeing this.

After I told em that.... they were glued to every single one of those movies. LOL

We all laugh about that to this day.

 

[kurtfaulk]

.

dumbest people alive goes to kong skull island.

ok i get it, the first copter came too close and got crushed by kong. the second one didn't have time to process what happened.

but then the next 27 copters that were hit by the beast? c'mon.


it did have the funniest scene though.



.

 

[Mister Sin]

Loved Skull Island

 

[Dz1]

Kong with Jack Black imho.

2005 if I'm right lol

 

[CGI_Ram]

Mine would be 1933.

When I was a kid that movie was played every New Year’s eve as some sort of tradition on TV. I don’t know if that was a local thing, growing up in St. Louis, but I’m going back to around 1980. Maybe late 70’s. Something about staying up late to watch it...

That movie was always sort of special to me as a kid.

 

[Classic Rams]

Of your list the 1976 got my vote.

But this is my all time favorite King Kong film. Saw it 10 times back in a theater in Hawaii when I was a kid. These days whenever I watch the dvd on my big screen and turn off the lights I'm that same kid back in that moment.