Get your popcorn ready for some blockbuster action, but don’t forget to get it KING sized!
Kong is back and he’s bigger than ever in our latest retread in Hollywood for Kong: Skull Island. Directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts, this retelling starts to shape a budding Monster Universe, soon to unite King Kong with another giant Kaiju-like being, Godzilla (among others!).
The plot here for Skull Island is what you would expect from a movie featuring a gargantuan biped. In 1973, a team of researchers belonging to the mysterious Monarch organization look to venture on an expedition to a previously unknown island in the South Pacific. Luckily for them, the plug on the war effort in Vietnam had been pulled and a bunch of commandos get reassigned/recruited to help escort the discovery of an island that humanity forgot. Researchers: Check. Military. Check. Super cool retired British S.A.S tracker. Check. Attractive blonde photo-journalist there to expose it all. Check. Alrighty then, we have a group of cannon-fodder that this island can chomp down on. Let’s get to it!
The plot is definitely simple but at least it’s trying to differentiate itself from the same beats as previous Kong titles such as Peter Jackson’s 2005 version of the colossus. Instead, there is a bigger vision involved and not just because Kong himself is around 100 feet tall. Rather than coming across this world by accident, our characters in Skull Island are purposefully setting out to find the unknown and bring the creatures to light to the general public. The trouble only begins when their wish is granted and we all know to be careful what we wish for.
There’s plenty to like in this 2017 re-imagining. For starters, the effects are excellent with Kong himself looking spectacular, particularly around the eyes since that’s where the audience can extract his emotional state the most from. Toby Kebbell does an excellent motion capture job as the titular behemoth, following suit from his Dawn of the Planet of the Apes mo-cap role as Koba. The other creatures such as the skull crawlers and giant spider are also highly defined and the CGI isn’t too distracting when shit starts hitting the proverbial fan. The only part that kind of pulls you out of the Hawaiian back drop is the clear use of green screen in some landscape shots. They definitely stick out like a sore thumb. Thankfully it doesn’t occur too often and the action of a giant bipedal primate smashing helicopters and kicking the shit out of subterranean beasts is more than enough to vanquish the memory of a poor background shot.
To Skull Island and Jordan Vogt-Roberts’ credit, King Kong is actually on screen for a decent amount of time. This is in comparison to Gareth Edwards’ 2014 Godzilla, where the atomic lizard is merely glimpsed at throughout the film before the 10 minute climax (which is the highlight of the movie). It might have worked for his previous film in Monsters, but those creatures didn’t already have a long history. Who would have thought that the audience actually wants to see the freakishly large being that the movie is named after? Well, Vogt-Roberts got the hint from Kong’s Monster Universe predecessor and Skull Island is better for it. Go figure.
The director is most certainly a fan of movie monsters as there are several Easter eggs planted throughout the two hour run time. The shot towards the end of the film with Kong entwined in chains is reminiscent of a scene in the 1933 original. And what would seem like a throwaway line about giant ants from John C. Reilly’s character, Marlow, is actually an allusion to the 1950’s monster flick Them! Sammy L. even drops a line taken directly from the mouth of his Jurassic Park character upon entering the islands storm system: “Hold onto your butts!”.
SPOILER COUNTRY
On paper, Kong: Skull Island boasts an incredible cast with the likes of Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, John Goodman, Toby Kebbell and John C. Reilly. Unfortunately, they’re all underused with the exception of John C. Reilly. His character of Marlow was a pleasant surprise as the bits from the trailers just make him out to be just another crazy person. Turns out he was quite endearing with a proper dose of comic relief and a healthy 28 year knowledge of the island for survival. At the same time, his knowledge of the island is what makes Tom Hiddleston’s Conrad not really needed. It defeats the purpose of having a tracker to begin with. But fuck it, I guess, Hiddleston is prettier. Same goes for Brie Larson. The Academy Award winner doesn’t really have much to do but at least she’s somewhat more capable than the previous female protagonists of King Kong’s past. Thankfully, she’s not awkwardly made out to be a love interest for the ape. Instead, the writers still feel the need to force feed a potential relationship between the two most attractive people on camera (Hiddleston and Larson in this case) . It’s a mystery to me why this still happens and it’s totally not needed in a movie like this. Their focus should be to survive! I doubt their characters are thinking about fucking each other if they’re in the presence of a crazed military man on an island infested with carnivorous..well…everything.
Speaking of crazed military men, Samuel L. Jackson’s Colonel Packard is a bad guy just because. I get that he’s butt hurt about “abandoning” the war in Vietnam, but he purposefully and selfishly puts his men further into harm’s way just so that he can fight another mission. He initially does so under the guise of finding his second in command, Chapman, also played by Toby Kebbell. However, you know he couldn’t give a shit about the man, he just wants the weapons Chapman’s helicopter went down with. Obviously, the filmmakers didn’t give a fuck about Kebbell’s human character either because he quickly and unceremoniously gets killed. If he wasn’t already doing something meaningful with his mo-cap performance as Kong, I would be pissed he was wasted the way he was. Oh yeah, and John Goodman was in it…Yep, that’s about all you can say there.
It’s clear where the director gets his motivations from while filming 2017’s first major blockbuster. Between the nods to the old monster movies before it and the Vietnam era flicks such as Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket, Skull Island nicely meshes the cinematography of the genres together. Like other iterations, Kong is not fierce for the sake of being fierce. He’s seen by everyone (with the exception of Jackson’s Packard) to be a fair and compassionate King of the island. The effects are terrific, the human characters are still kind of weak and the world building towards the end of the film promises a continuation of much more to come. I’m okay with a developing monster universe as it doesn’t feel random or forced like some other attempts at a cinematic universe (IM LOOKING AT YOU, SPLIT). It makes sense (as far as giant dragons and apes go) that similar creatures would exist in the same world. Plus, it’s a recipe for printing money when you combine franchises that are known across the globe.
FINAL THOUGHTS: The action was BANANAS! B-A-N-A-N-A-S! If you’re going to miss it in theatres, no big deal. However, if you did manage to catch it (especially in IMAX 3D) you would probably have enjoyed it that much more for the visuals alone.
The Tuesday Ticket 