Review of Kong: Skull Island (2017) by Michael M — 18 Oct 2017

A lot of people say this movie isn't very good because it's just Kong beating up a bunch of monsters. Well here's my counter-argument: it's just Kong beating up a bunch of monsters. It almost feels like a counter-reaction to the Peter Jackson movie, which got complaints for being too long and not enough Kong. Here, we see Kong almost immediately. We get a brief glimpse in the pre-credits scene and then a full shot and some destruction no more than 15 minutes later. From then on it's just a roller coaster ride of jungle adventure and monster destruction.

It's like an old school jungle adventure movie with a modern day budget, and I love that. I also love the movies creativity with the monsters. In the other Kong movies, Skull Island had dinosaurs. Cool, but we've definitely seen that before. Here, there are all sorts of things. In one scene they're walking through a bamboo forest only to notice some of the bamboo seems to be moving, and then that the moving bamboo sticks are actually the legs of a giant spider; can't say I've seen that before. The monster battles with Kong are pretty great too. They feel a little fanservice-y at times, but that's not really a bad thing. There's nothing quite on par with the T-Rex battle of the original or the Peter Jackson remake, but there's definitely a lot more battles overall.

The characters are a mixed bag, and that's where most of the criticism comes in. Most of them are pretty one note without much development. Still, there are some highlights here too. For one, John Goodman and Samuel L. Jackson are in a movie together. These are, for my money, two of the best actors working today so seeing them onscreen with each other was awesome. Then there's John C. Reilly, an old military pilot who crash landed on the island decades prior and has been living there ever since, a great character idea. All the actors in the movie are notable actors, and they're all putting forth their best, but admittedly they aren't always given a ton to work with. I guess I just didn't mind that all that much though. The focus was on Kong, and with Kong I had a ton of fun. The characters were vehicles to move the adventure along, and to do that they were fine. The only area where I really do feel like they had a missed opportunity was with John C. Reilly. He crash landed with a pilot of the opposing side, but without a war separating them and having to survive in a violent jungle, they were forced to work together and eventually became best friends. That's damn fascinating, but it's only passingly mentioned when Reilly is looking at his friend's tombstone.

If you know what you're going into, Kong: Skull Island is a really fun movie. It's not a cinematic masterpiece, and the characters are definitely thin on development, but as an effects-driven ride it's a lot of fun. Think of it this way, for entertainment you have lots of options. Maybe you go to a museum and see great works of art, or maybe you go to an amusement park and get an adrenaline rush from the roller coasters. This movie is a roller coaster. Maybe it's not as life-changing as high art, but it still has a place in our entertainment culture.