Kong: Skull Island is a 2017 action/fantasy film directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts and is the second film in a newly expanding universe which incorporates the 2014 Godzilla film. The film stars an ensemble cast consisting of Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, John Goodman, Brie Larson, John C. Reilly, and many more. The story follows a team of scientists and Vietnam War soldiers who travel to an uncharted island in the Pacific and encounter terrifying creatures and the mighty Kong.
So this one is going to be a pretty easy review for me. Although I was very excited for this movie, it ended up being a pretty big let down. To start things off, the cast list looked amazing, and for the most part it was. Each actor played their character very well, but if they weren’t a highly paid actor I can almost assure you that they are worthless to the plot and are extremely expendable. There were only a couple real characters that actually had any development throughout this film, and I’ll tell it to you now, it was only Jackson and Reilly’s characters. These two characters were the only ones who you saw any progression with, and the only ones you were either rooting to succeed or fail.
Beyond poorly developed characters, this film had another fundamental flaw and that was Kong. You would think that a movie titled Kong: Skull Island would be about King Kong, but that seemed to be quite the opposite. The majority of this film showed Kong as a bystander, almost as if these people were trying to make a documentary about him. There was very little character interaction between him and the humans, and when there was it just seemed out of place within Kong’s perception of things and his development as a character.
The other major issue I had with this film was with the cinematography. Now since this movie shares the same universe as 2014’s Godzilla, which I really enjoyed, I’m just going to say that the way they reveal Kong is pretty anticlimactic. In Godzilla it takes almost the entire movie for us to see the beast, and when we do it’s because it’s because the audience deserves to see him (or her), while in this film Kong is just there. No build up, no big reveal.. nope just Kong standing there waiting to blow up some helicopters. I mean, this is the biggest Kong to date, and the way they reveal his character just doesn’t seem as climatic as I’ve seen in other films, more specifically, the film that shares the same universe as this one.
Now there are a bunch of other issues I had with the film, mainly being the creatures also found on the island and the exposition behind them, but I’ll leave that alone for now. The few things this movie did do well with was some of its shots, mainly the color pallet and Apocalypse Now references. The sound design was fine, and for the most part Kong looked better than ever with his CGI, but for the most part this film was held together by a couple of characters and Kong himself.
I guess that’s where Kong: Skull Island leaves me. The film was just alright as it never blew me away nor left me wanting to leave the theater. John C. Reilly had some pretty good moments, and both him and Samuel L. Jackson stole the show when it came to any sort of character development, but isn’t that wrong that I care more about the human characters than Kong himself? None of the cast is even remotely important, and like I said above, most (if not all) the characters were used as expendable exposition. Sure the end came with some awesome fight scenes and decent art style, but what is a movie named Kong without the King himself having a bigger role than the expendable humans? In the end I decided to give Kong: Skull Island an “Alright” on theVade Review Bar. Yes, I was disappointed by this highly anticipated film, but the creative team should feel even worse when the best part of this film was a post credit scene dedicated to the cooler older brother in the newly extended monsterverse.
