Overly Verbose Interpretation

Edgar Wallace & Merian C. Cooper came up with an incredibly imaginative story about a giant ape from a remote island that becomes infatuated with a beautiful actress and is imported to New York City by an unscrupulous capitalist - to yield a tragic disaster. The story has become incredibly familiar over the decades - revered and repeated - and has spawned numerous reinterpretations and spinoff adventures.
This novelization of the original 1933 film version is capably written, religiously faithful to the screenplay, and mind's-eye vivid. Fans of the franchise will definitely feel nostalgic during the listen.
Less fortunately, Delos W. Lovelace does far more than transcribe the script.. and he's not a good enough writer to pull it off. His vocabulary is too broad, he often uses a paragraph where a sentence would suffice, the inner dialogue that he gives to characters is too in-depth, and attempts to ascribe motives fall flat (Director 'Carl Denham' comes across as far too sympathetic, for example).

Fortuitously for this Blackstone Audio project, reader Stefan Rudnicki turns in an excellent performance. He definitely reads too slowly (listening at 1.20X is required for a natural-sounding experience) and he overenunciates slightly, but Mr Rudnicki reads with exemplary diction, cadence, and voice-acting; an admirably interested tone; and his signature rich baritone timbre. The narration is well above average.

Taking into account the insightful commentary in the final chapter of this recording, this iteration of 'King Kong' merits 6 stars out of 10. Fans of the film versions of this iconic movie monster will enjoy this well-known & well-loved story. The audiobook is an entertaining five hours - ideal for a long drive or a quiet night shift.
If Audible asks for a Credit, you should probably save it for something else.. but if you can get this production as a 'Plus' selection, you should absolutely do so.

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