Review: Kong: Skull Island Is Half A Movie Away From Being A Good Movie.
- Mar 9, 2017
- 3 min read
I've liked King Kong for sometime now. From reading a picture book adaptation of the original film to waiting to see what Peter Jackson did with the license, Kong has always been there. Never a major presence but always in the back of my mind, lurking, waiting to be unleashed. Skull Island almost sets that part of me free but it might just be the most divisive movie I've ever seen.
Bill Randa (John Goodman), founder of Monarch, a group dedicated to proving the existence of near mythical beasts, comes into possession of a satellite image of an island, Skull Island. Believing there is evidence to support his theories on the island he assembles a team. James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston), an ex-SAS survival expert, Mason Weaver (Brie Larson), a war journalist and Preston Packard (Samuel L Jackson), a ranking officer about to go home as the Vietnam War comes to a close. But after hard contact with a colossal simian, survival is the only goal.
Kong: Skull Island has a real identity problem. On one hand it's an excellent Vietnam War movie only with giant monsters instead of the Viet Cong. On the other it's a King Kong movie that completely misses the point that even the 1976 film didn't screw up. While the concept of beauty killing the beast, of the monster torn from it's home only to fall dead in the streets of New York, are dead before the film begins, due to the announcement of Godzilla vs King Kong.
Between Sam Jackson and Shea Wigham's battered veterans along with a colourful cast of soldiers. When they're on screen, be it battling giant monsters or trudging through endless jungle and it feels very much like Apocalypse Now, even down to Packard's slow descent into madness. Elsewhere Tom Hiddleston is dull, Brie Larson does nothing and John C. Reilly, whose also in this movie, cracks jokes amidst helicopter crashes and mass slaughter. To say he's out of place would be a Kong sized understatement.
Speaking of Kong, he and the other creatures look great. While Kong lacks the nuance of Jackson's film, he's got more backstory to him than any of the other iterations. He's the last of his species, almost a guardian, the one who watches over the other beasts on the island. And what beasts there are. From the giant spider, to the magnificent buffalo and the lizard-like skull crawlers. There's some great effects and visuals, often wreathed in flame of hidden within dense jungle.
There's solid action as well. There's a very cool fight against a giant spider, Kong verses the various beasts is spectacular and the final showdown between Jackson and Kong might just be the best visuals of 2017. Unfortunately some of it is wasted, namely a heroic sacrifice toward the end that's just a throwaway and certain actors (John C. Reilly) are just bad and really have no place in the film.
Ultimately, Kong: Skull Island is half a good movie, that being the Vietnam style components, and half a boring movie that goes absolutely nowhere. I really wanted to enjoy this movie and, to some extent, I did. But whenever Jackson leaves the screen, I lost all interest. It's not awful but you won't miss anything if you skip it.
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