Kong: Skull Island

John Chard 5/16/2024 3:22:18 PM 8.4

Yeah. That was an unconventional encounter. So here we have it, part two of the franchise reinvention of the beloved iconic creatures of cinema lore. After the 2014 redux of Godzilla was something of a tonal misstep, it's unsurprising to find this version of the King Kong legacy going all out blockbuster popcorner, and with that it succeeds - kinda. Plot is wafer thin, bunch of humans from various professions rock up at the uncharted Skull Island, each with differing levels of interest as to what might be there. Of which they quickly find out is a whole heap of trouble - big trouble! It's clear that the makers, fronted by director Jordan Vogt-Roberts, are trying to blend crowd pleasing mayhem with thoughtful observations of not only the period the pic is set (1973), but also of man's inherent propensity for stupidity. On the surface, the battles and creature feature carnage in general, are wholly entertaining, but it's sometimes just too ridiculous for its own good. Even worse is that it's shallow, with no real substance of note, particularly where the characters are concerned, rendering a very admirable cast as one note players in the monkey maze. However, irritants aside, the pic is great fun, with enough excitement and quippy dialogue to make the time spent on Skull Island worthwhile. Be it man versus beasties and the alien terrain they traverse, a popcorn muncher it be. There's some sly humour within (Tricky Dicky Nixon going down), and the nods towards Coppola and Cameron et al are pleasing as punch. You may have to lower expectation levels to not let the problems it has drag you down, and for sure it's not hard to understand why a lot of folk hate it, but it's not a disaster, far from it. One does hope, though, that the next instalment in this series goes up another couple of notches, for Kong, Zilla and the other monster gods deserve it. 7/10

Per Gunnar Jonsson 5/16/2024 3:21:15 PM 8.4

I really wanted to give this movie a better score but I just could not bring myself to overlook the stupid and crappy story. Okay, let’s start with the bad. The movie is about a group of explorers exploring this Skull Island. No surprise there. They are accompanied by a military detachment. Somewhat okay still, there is a half decent explanation for that. One of the main characters in the movie is Lieutenant Colonel Packard. At first, I quite liked him, especially when he told off the journalist informing her that they did not loose the war, it was abandoned by the politicians. However, from then on it goes really bad. Warning, spoilers ahead! Once on the island Kong is revealed rather quickly. Something that I felt was a bit of a shame. There was no suspense building up for the reveal of the mighty ape. Okay, I could live with that. What I cannot live with is that these total dumb-asses, having discovered a scientific find of unprecedented magnitude, goes straight on to shooting off their guns. What the fuck? Not only that, they just keep shooting and circling around him while he trashes them one by one. That scene, while sporting some impressive action and CGI, was just so fucked up that one wondered if the author deliberately wanted to insult the audience. From then on I just cringed every time Colonel Packard was in the picture. He was clearly mentally unstable. He doggedly continued to want to kill Kong and used retrieving his men as a poor excuse. This is just the kind of shitty, overused and cliche’d Hollywood script that drives me nuts. Now, with that over with, the movie was technically quite good. The actors are doing a decent enough job of their roles. The story, excluding the Vietnam references and general let’s make the military look bad old bullshit, was actually not to bad. It was a different take on the King Kong history for sure. The CGI, the action and the various monsters were very cool. Not surprisingly King Kong was not the only threat on the Island. This time they did not just throw a few dinosaurs in but was rather creative bringing in creatures from all kind of animal (and insect) families as well as some home cooked ones, the skull crawlers. The scenery is also very enjoyable. Apart from my gripes mentioned above I did enjoy a lot of the movie. However, the military clusterfuck that the script writer threw in there severely diminished my enjoyment of the movie and I cannot really bring me to give it more that a 3+ out of 5 score.

Diogenis 6/23/2021 3:58:37 PM 8.4

Alright. So i like action movies. I like King Kong. So when you have this idea of having the traditional king kong story made into a action movie about monsters in the skulk island, that sounds like a fcking great idea. The best part of King Kong was all this other monsters in the island. But this film is the first one to tell the story of kong completely from that perspective. What i also really liked was that it was still very human even though its a monster movie. I personally enjoyed it very much like with any other Kong film there is the love angle which is done with brie larson character which i thought was really sweet to put into a movie that concentrates on being a fun movie. And it achieves being a fun movie. I had a lot of fun watching this film. The plot is simple. The vfx is really done well. The action sequences where good. Is it forgettable? Kinda. You have that nice 70s nostalgia around it but it doesn't stay there because after all its all in the island of the world. It was a very fun experience and very satisfying. I didn't get bored with it. It had my attention. It was good. So overall, should you see it? Yes, if you have the time and you are in the mood for an action movie go watch it. It will entertain you for most of its run-time.