Review of Kong: Skull Island (2017) by Nick C — 19 Jun 2017

Talk about a missed opportunity. Kong: Skull Island is a monster movie that threatens to break age-old monsters movie clichés, but ultimately ends up pursuing them. Starring John Goodman, Samuel L. Jackson, Brie Larson, John C. Reilly, and Tom Hiddleston (it would be pointless to mention individual characters as none of them serve any unique or individual purpose), the film takes us to an uncharted island in the Pacific that is reached for the first time by a group of scientists, soldiers, and explorers. From there, it is a nonstop action/adventure thrill-ride as several unique creatures all take a whack at trying to kill the travelers. Obviously, Kong is one of them.

The film immediately tries to point out, almost pretentiously, that this is no average creature-feature. Kong ruthlessly destroys the fleet of helicopters that first approach Skull Island, but we are quickly informed that this is only out of self-defense - Kong is the good guy here. This is promising, especially since some of the characters want to utterly destroy it, while others have more compassion and sympathy towards it. Or maybe I should call Kong him.

Anyway, I liked the message about monsters the film tries to pursue. It even opens with various historical clips talking about the things in our world that are out of our grasp, that we don't understand - the film wants us to open our minds to the idea that these things don't necessarily harm us, but rather, can help us.

Sadly, Kong seems to almost be at odds with itself, most notably when the infamous "skull crawlers" show up. The movie tells us that these are the creatures we want to kill, these are the creatures we should be rooting against, and these are the bad guys - but Kong, on the other hand, is the monster we need to root for, because he's a nice monster who only wants to defend what is his. But can't the same case be made for the skull crawlers? Where's the sympathy for them?

Based on how much this movie preaches to us about caring for monsters, and trying to understand something bigger than ourselves, it has a double standard towards Kong, and every other creature is fair game.

Now, should I really be nitpicking this film for contradictory intellectual themes? It's a monsters movie, after all, and obviously its main goal is entertainment. The problem was, if I'm being honest with myself, I wasn't that entertained. I'll refer to Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park for comparison, which in my opinion is not only the best monster movie of all time, but one of the most entertaining movies of all time. The filmmakers involved in Jurassic knew how to make a monster picture entertaining. We weren't given mindless, several-minute-long, CGI-laden, monster battles. Why? Because big monster fights aren't all that fun to watch. There are very little possibilities for entertainment; one punches the other, they throw each other around, they cause endless destruction, but we're not thrilled or entertained - I always find myself hopelessly bored, wondering when the carnage will finally end. In Jurassic, we are treated to a mere 14 minutes of screen time for the dinosaurs, yet Spielberg is able to make effective use of them - they chase the characters, the characters hide from there, and we are engrossed and on the edge of our seats the whole time. Kong is not that way. I wish it were mindless entertainment, as it brands itself to be.

I enjoyed the style of the film - 70's music, Apocalypse Now references, a distinct credits scene, and very colorful visuals. It's not a terrible movie - I enjoyed some of its subtle charms and stylistic visuals, but ultimately, it follows standard monster movie clichés nearly to a tee, and its entertainment value suffers as a result. It's no fun.

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Rating: 2.5/4.