Kong: Skull Island delivers a fun experience at the movies with plenty of spectacle and heart. Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts gets great performances out of his cast and the visual effects team nailed the creatures. It’s unfortunate that this film comes out a week after Logan and the week before Beauty in the Beast as people may sleep on it. However, if you’ve enjoyed monster movies in the past then this one will work really well.
Kong: Skull Island is a monster movie crushes it
At the end of the Vietnam war, Lieutenant Colonel Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson) leads his squad along with tracker James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston), photographer Mason Weaver (Brie Larson), and Monarch researchers Bill Randa (John Goodman) and his team into an unchartered island. It’s not long before they find what Bill Randa is looking for and Kong greets them to his island. The team finds themselves split up and with a one chance off the island and a surprise guide form a stranded World War II pilot, Hank Marlow (John C. Reilly).
John C. Reilly is the greatest part of this film beside Kong. He is the comic relief, the heart, and the wise man who has faced the dangers of the island. He dominates the scenes he is in and works well with everyone he gets to interact with. The film actual opens with his younger version crashing on the island with a Japanese soldier. The implied dogfight continues now hand to hand, but it’s interrupted on the island.
The soldiers under Preston Packard also bring an emotional crux to the film played by Jason Mitchell, Toby Kebbell, Shea Whigham, Thomas Mann, and Eugene Cordero. There is a recurring element of a letter that Jack Chapman (Kebbell) was writing to his son. It makes them very sympathetic and the fact that they were one day away from going home before coming to this island only increases that feeling. These give this film a strong emotional element that was lacking from the 2014 Godzilla.
The film isn’t completely perfect with Hiddleston’s character getting too much of the hero treatment that doesn’t feel entirely earned. The connection that his character gets with Mason also feels a little forced. There is a scene early in the film when they first get on the Athena, the ship that will get them close to the island, that feels somewhat out of place. Both Weaver and Conrad are exploring the ship and they seem suspicious of the motivations of this expedition. Yet, they almost seem to already know each other, but they clearly don’t. However, both Larson and Hiddleston deliver great performances and the writing seems to be where the problem lies. The thing is though, there are a lot of elements being juggled and for the most part it is done well.
Final Thoughts…
Kong: Skull Island is the giant monster movie we’ve been waiting for. The promise of the future of this universe makes it all the more exciting. There is plenty monsters with humans that aren’t annoying and actually add to the story. Kong: Skull Island earns the Not Quite Golden, Ponyboy rating.
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