Movie Reaction: Kong: Skull Island

Formula: (King Kong + King Kong + Jurassic World + Godzilla) / (Apocalypse Now + Platoon + Full Metal Jacket)

You can't kill King Kong. He always comes back. That's become one of the great truths of cinema. It is hard to find a movie/character that has been remade or revisited as much as Kong that owes its creation to cinema. Characters that have gone through many iterations like Robin Hood and Dracula have literary inspirations. Not King Kong. He was made for movies and keeps coming back. Only a dozen years since Peter Jackson spent his Lord of the Rings clout on his King Kong, the giant ape is back in Kong: Skull Island as part of Warner Brother's and Legendary's monster movie universe, and it's exactly what I expected.

Skull Island has a lot of setup work to do early on. In 1973, during the waning days of the Vietnam War, Bill Randa (John Goodman), using a paper published by a geologist (Corey Hawkins), convinces the U.S. government to go on a research mission to an uncharted island in the Pacific: Skull Island. They have another scientist (Tian Jing) with them. To escort them on this mission, Colonel Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson) and his special ops team - including Jason Mitchell, Thomas Mann, Shea Whigham, Eugene Cordero, and others - take on this last mission instead of returning home from Vietnam. James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston) is a famous tracker that Packard hires for assistance. Mason Weaver (Brie Larson) is a famous photographer who joins for the thrill of going somewhere new. John Ortiz and Marc Evan Jackson are additional researchers. Once they all get to Skull Island and run into Kong, they learn about Kong and the island from Hank Marlow (John C. Reilly), a WWII pilot who has been stuck on the island for 28 years. This group has three days to get to a rendezvous point on the island in order to get rescued. But, Packard becomes obsessed with killing Kong despite there being much more dangerous creatures on the island.

Ok, I wrote that last paragraph to make a point. Did you notice how hard it was to keep track of all those name? There are too many damn characters in this movie. There's a reason for this. A lot of people die. The problem is that with so many characters, there's not a chance to connect with any of them. The many credited screenwriters would've been smart to take a page of out the horror handbook. In a slasher movie, there's only about a half dozen people in the core group. That's a manageable number that still leaves room for people to get picked off. Or maybe Cloverfield is a better example of this. With so many cast members to juggle, Skull Island ends up being filled with caricatures not characters. I left the movie with only a surface-level understanding of any character, and when you assemble a cast this good, that's a shame.

However, Kong himself doesn't disappoint. Toby Kebbell has just about usurped Andy Serkis as the preeminent motion-capture performer in Hollywood. He kicks ass as Kong. The animation of Kong looks great. The film never goes too long without a big fight scene. Three years ago, Godzilla patiently waited to reveal the beast until as late as it possibly could. Skull Island is very much the opposite. Kong is front and center as early and often as possible. And let's be honest, that's what I bought my ticket for.

It's funny how similar director Jordan Vogt-Roberts' work in this is to Colin Trevorrow's in Jurassic World. Both directors went from making small indie films (The Kings of Summer for Vogt-Roberts and Safety Not Guaranteed for Trevorrow) to these massive blockbusters with no films in between and, both share the same reckless abandon. Skull Island looks like it was directed by an immensely talented 10 year old. There is no restraint in the direction. Nearly every shot looks like it was approached with the thought "What would be the coolest way to do this?". Slow motion, sunsets, and close-ups of Kong's or others' eyes are in healthy supply. It's distracting more than it is bad. When everything is shot so big, it dilutes the effect for the actual big moments.

I don't like to play soundtrack police. I'm not very good at it. Song selection is not something I notice all that often. When I do, that's normally a problem. The songs that Skull Island uses aren't bad. They just aren't very interesting. It's basically "Vietnam: The Soundtrack". There's plenty of CCR and Black Sabbath. The Chambers Brother, the Stooges, Jefferson Airplane. It's like every needle drop - and they love showing a needle drop in this movie - is there to remind you that it's 1973. No one tried very hard to choose a non-obvious song from the era. Not every song needs to be from an artist's Greatest Hits collection.

I'm going after Skull Island harder than I meant to. It's a fine movie. It's just a busy one. Too busy. All I really need is Kong fighting monsters and a couple human characters for a POV. Skull Island has that and much more. Kong's fights are fun to watch. Tom Hiddleston gets some good "movie star" moments. A lot of things explode. The direction is never dull. If you are hoping to appreciate the movie as anything more than a monster/disaster movie, you'll be disappointed. The movie is as good as it needs to be and nothing more.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend