"Green: A car wreck of clichés like that simply can’t put a feminist story across meaningfully. Or any story, really — and that’s a bigger problem than the bad score and sluggish 20-foot marionette...Brantley: The story — and the music and the dancing — are basically just filler until Kong shows up again...Brantley: I kept hoping a higher camp factor might kick in...Green: The camp here is all accidental...'Margaritaville,' which until now was my musical theater low point of 2018."
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"The titular creation is truly impressive: a 20-foot, 2,000-pound animatronic marvel that would be the pride of any amusement-park thrill ride...Yet this very special effect is trapped in a show that is mostly pretty awful. It pads its spectacular attraction in a skeletal, hackneyed story...The truly frustrating thing about 'Kong' is the waste of it all. Why did this story, whose central figure necessarily cannot sing, need to be a musical at all, much less one that suggests a 'Simpsons' parody?"
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"King Kong–the–creature is a truly marvelous feat—of design, of engineering, of choreography, of performers and operators and stage managers functioning at bomb-diffusion levels of precision—and 'King Kong'-–the–show is, beyond its spectacle, generic. It’s an amped-up blockbuster with largely forgettable songs, many of the belt-and-inspire variety...What it’s really about is a 2,000-pound puppet and our own desire, as hungry audiences, to see something totally freakin’ awesome."
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“Kong is the show’s true star. He’s huge, muscular, and bottomlessly dark—all black and gray. His hands and feet are operated, in minutest detail, by a small, dancerly army, and his face moves via uncannily precise—and, I’ll admit, touching...There aren’t any instantly classic songs in the show, which makes it unlikely to be a long-lasting item of interest, but it’s fun simply because of Kong’s presence. The audience laughed and gasped...We whooped when he stood to his full height."
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"The title character is played by a giant puppet designed by Sonny Tilders and manipulated by a team of 10 stalwart operators. Between them, they give us a creature so expressive that he seems to have wandered into the theater from another, vastly better musical...The score and songs, jointly concocted by Marius de Vries and Eddie Perfect, are loud and vapid. Jack Thorne’s book is stupefyingly banal."
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"Director Drew McOnie has captured a wildly impressive 1.2-ton puppet, even if the musical surrounding it is considerably less memorable...Kong’s facial expressions – every teeth-baring show of force, each wary look of confused affection, moans of pain – are enchanting, and at least as convincing as any bit of CGI or stop-motion committed to film...The musical numbers certainly won’t keep you from wanting to get to the Kong stuff, which mostly pays off."
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"One thrill ride of a show...The show disappoints in its mishmash of musical styles...You could say Kong has one of the best 11 o’clock numbers around when he approaches the apron of the stage to break through...There’s also more than a few cliches, and a set-up that’s a stretch...But Thorne also makes some smart choices...It’s not just the mammoth Kong that helps carry the show but also Pitts, who plays the marathon role of Ann with infinite resilience and resolve."
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"Even if the star puppet might be better suited for an arena spectacle or theme-park attraction, you can't take your eyes off this technological marvel, not least for its incredible facial expressiveness...This is a rare time I can honestly say that while 'King Kong' the musical is a wretched mess, I would recommend 'King Kong' the stage spectacle...This is a show in which the songs never feel grounded in story or character, let alone period."
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