Review of Kong: Skull Island (2017) by Joshua S — 22 Apr 2017

I have to admit that I'm not quite sold on this MonsterVerse business Warner Bros has gotten themselves into. I mean Godzilla was a decent movie, albeit unremarkable, but I just never got the long-term sustainability of such an enterprise. But now after watching Kong: Skull Island I figured it out - the point is to take gigantic monsters and smash them into each other and make a sh** ton of a money doing so. Oh, Kong is a decent movie in terms of being a more than serviceable popcorn flick, but let's not lose sight here. Kong: Skull Island is a big-budget B-movie with a couple of fantastic performances and a touch of campiness to go along with a genuinely creepy atmosphere.

So let's address the skyscraper-size gorilla in the room. No, Skull Island is not as good as Peter Jackson's misunderstood King Kong. But then again they're not really comparable are they? King Kong was slow-paced and meditative remake of the original 1930's classic. Though this word has become quite clichéd, it was a deconstruction of its source material and remains my personal favorite, though I'm probably in the minority on this issue. Kong: Skull Island does away with that and has a properly monstrous and borderline unsympathetic Kong and even more disgusting creatures for him and our human characters to fight. The action takes places entirely on Skull Island, which is wise, as that part hasn't been abused by pop culture as much as Kong's date with a certain skyscraper. We follow a group of researchers, a merc, a journalist, and airmobile US Infantry following the close of the Vietnam War as they discover the Island and that, yes, monsters exist. Then they proceed to argue with each other as they are murdered by both Kong and the even worse creatures inhabiting the island. It was quite surprising to me how gruesome and violent Skull Island was, considering how it's a PG-13 action flick. This alone deserves commendation in this day and age, but it may prove a bit much for some viewers. But it delivers the goods unquestionably and often, probably as a response to the complaints about Godzilla.

Most of the human characters are a wash and while I normally admire Brie Larson and Tom Hiddelston, they are completely bland pills here. Instead, the veteran character actors save the day - Samuel L. Jackson, John Goodman, and most notably John C. Reilly who steals the show as a stranded WWII-era fighter pilot who has adapted to the island a little too well. The Vietnam era does add something and I'm sure one could extrapolate the whole thing being a metaphor for that conflict if you were a pretentious liberal douche, but it does make for a killer soundtrack. No, I think Skull Island is less Vietnam allegory and more Moby Dick if you take a hard look at Sam Jackson's Ahab character. The movie's a qualified hit and this Kong looks like a match for Godzilla and Mothra and whatever creatures Legendary and Warner Bros dig out of the archives. I'm up for it.