Kong: Skull Island does a good job of keeping the viewer too off-balance to think much about the plot holes
King Kong is one of cinema’s most enduring and beloved monsters. From his on-screen origin in the 1933 film that bore his name until now, Kong has graced multiple films, TV shows, cartoons, and videogames with his presence. Usually cast as a tragic figure who falls victim to man’s inevitable quest to tame all things wild, Kong typically doesn’t make it to the final scene in most of his films.
Legendary Pictures’ MonsterVerse, a cinematic universe comprised of some of the biggest monsters in motion picture history, has given King Kong a new lease on life and a revised backstory. In Kong: Skull Island, the second movie in the MonsterVerse series, King Kong is the guardian of Skull Island much like he was in the original 1933 film, King Kong. This time out, however, he is not destined to travel to New York or fall in love with Fay Wray.
The movie is set in 1973, just as the Vietnam War is winding down. Monarch, an organization that searches for Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms (MUTOs) — or, as we moviegoers would call them: monsters — proposes a mission to Skull Island. The island is surrounded by a perpetual storm system that had hidden it from view until satellite photography revealed its location. Monarch, having had previous encounters with large monsters in the area (in 2014’s Godzilla, the first entry in the MonsterVerse,) wants to explore it as soon as possible.
Bill Randa (John Goodman,) a Monarch official, proposes the idea of an expedition to the island under the guise of doing a geological survey. After securing funding, he assembles a team including an SAS tracker (Tom Hiddleston), a photographer (Brie Larson) and a military escort unit led by Colonel Crawford (Samuel L. Jackson.)
Upon arriving at the island, the team’s helicopters are knocked out of the sky almost immediately by a giant ape. Those that survive the ape’s attack are separated into three groups. Knowing that they only have three days to reach an extraction point at the island’s northern end, the groups will have to learn how to fend off giant (and hungry) creatures quite unlike anything they’ve seen before.
Kong: Skull Island is a visually striking film. Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts (The Kings of Summer) and cinematographer Larry Fong (Watchmen) have produced a monster movie that is a collection of one beautifully dangerous situation after another. Unfortunately, to get these amazing visuals, any semblance of continuity from one scene to another is an afterthought. (For example, the boat that carries the team’s helicopters to the island only seems to carry four choppers. But ten are shown approaching the island in slow motion. The higher number of helicopters gives Kong an ample opportunity to show off his batting skills, but doesn’t make a lot of sense otherwise.)
The script, by Dan Gilroy, Max Borenstein, and Derek Connolly, is fairly predictable plot-wise but does populate Skull Island with a variety of impressive and dangerous monsters. Giant spiders, devilish lizard-like Skull Crawlers, massive water buffalo, and a huge octopus are just some of the fauna that the team (and Kong) have to deal with in this uncharted and deadly paradise. Whereas Godzilla featured precious little on-screen monster combat, Kong: Skull Island is brimming with it. The action is intense and there’s genuine suspense involved. Throw in a few jump scares and Kong: Skull Island does a good job of keeping the viewer too off-balance to think much about the plot holes.
Samuel L. Jackson plays the revenge-driven Colonel Crawford with his usual scene-chewing intensity. The script even throws in some good natured references to some of his other notable roles. John C. Reilly provides a dose of humor as Marlow, a World War II era pilot who is stranded on the island. Otherwise, the rest of the cast hit their marks and deliver their lines but never rise to the occasion like Jackson or Reilly. But this is really Kong’s show and thanks to the impressive CGI and special effects, he delivers the goods.
Kong: Skull Island is a perfect Saturday afternoon monster flick with plenty of action, thrills and explosions to make one forget about the real world for a while. That’s really all it needs to be and it succeeds. To put it under much more scrutiny than that would be missing the point entirely.
4.0 out of 5.0 stars
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