Kong: Skull Island

            With the release of Godzilla vs. Kong happening this week, I figured I would continue my journey into the MonsterVerse with Kong: Skull Island. I will be honest, having to follow up Godzilla, this film did not do a great job of it. I enjoyed this film to a degree, but I also had some major issues with the film that I will get into later, but first, I want to talk about the film and some of the things that I enjoyed from it. For those that are familiar with the original King Kong film and the Peter Jackson remake, this is not anything like that. It does not follow the basic Kong storyline that you might be used to. This film takes place in the 70s and revolves around an organization named Monarch looking for a place called Skull Island, where coincidentally, they discover Kong. Unlike the original, however, the plans that they develop for Kong are different. The original revolves around someone wanting to find the world’s next great wonder for money, but here, they are just looking for monsters for research. Speaking of monsters, that brings me to my first compliment of the film.

            One thing that is great about this film is the fight sequences between Kong and the other monsters. You can tell that director Jordan Vogt-Roberts really wanted to emphasize great choreography and epic fight sequences because that is really the saving grace of this film. Well, that, and the amazing cinematography. Director of Photography, Larry Fong, does some great work in this film with the shots, angles, and transitions, but I was not a big fan of the color scheme. They went with a vibrant look that sometimes can be a little much on the eyes. Finally, the last saving grace of the film is the performance of John C. Reilly. He is just absolutely fantastic and hilarious in this film and steals every single scene that he is in. Without him, this film would be rated a lot lower, because for as great as Kong is, the human characters are just one-dimensional and hollow.

            This film struggles with the human element a lot. What Godzilla did well was not give us an overabundance of Godzilla, so he was special whenever he made an appearance, and the humans were given a decent amount of depth to give us a reason to care. In this film, they turned the monster action all the way up, but in the process gave zero depth to the human characters, and the screenplay was nothing to write home about. Tom Hiddleston and Brie Larson are both fantastic actors and I usually love their performances, but they seem so dull and unmotivated here, and that seems to be because they were given very little to work with. It is never a good thing when two actors of that caliber are forgettable. This film also utilizes some unnecessary slow-motion, and I am never a fan of that.

            Overall, if you want to watch a giant monkey smash other creatures with some sick wrestling moves and nasty haymakers, this is a film that you will enjoy. If you are looking for anything else, you will likely be bored and disappointed. That being said, this film has one of the coolest post-credit scenes that I have seen. It really sets up the MonsterVerse well and gets you excited for the future. Official Rating: 2.5 Stars.

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