Peter Jackson's was better by a longshot.

Rating: 6/10 (17 March 2017)

Going into the theater tonight, I had a lot of expectations. I haven't gotten a taste of the King in a long time since Peter Jackson's take at the series.
What caught my eye at first before the movie even began was Legacy Films and... Tencent Films? Ooh an Chinese film production. This should be good! This immediately led me to let my guards down because I knew this movie was up for some cheesy stuff.
The very first parts of the movie had me siked as hell. Samuel L Jackson, John Goodman, and Loki. Probably my favorite actors in the whole world.
The movie opens up in WW2 with a Japanese soldier's plane getting shot down, and then John C Reilly's character's plane following right behind him. They try to kill each other, only to be interrupted by the King himself... Kong. Not even 5 minutes in and his face is already in the whole theater's face.
The parts right up until we discover the main group is separated are great, but that's when I think it falls downhill. The scenes started to become a real jumbled mess jumping back and forth between the two groups led by James Conrad(Tom Hiddleston) and Preston Packard(Samuel L Jackson)
The movie became SO cluttered, and it didn't flow at all to me. The other the thing that initially caught me off guard was how colossal Kong is. What I loved about Peter Jackson's movie is everything was anatomically aesthetic, everything fit the environment it lived in, which is how it should be. Here? Nah, everything here is gonna be 100+ feet tall by default. The smallest creature we probably see are some Deer grazing and Pterodactyls.
I thought the first lizard was a good size, what bothered me was it having no legs. To me, a creature with no legs and only supported by it's arms is not able to be that mobile and flexible, especially when fighting.
What I also didn't understand is the depth of the water Kong would be in. At one point in the movie, we see Chapman is alone and a gigantic squid is out and about in the water, probably preying on Chapman. The squid descends into the depths and enter Kong, splashing and making a big ruckus, also seeming to walk on water that SHOULD be deep. That whole random sequence of Kong and the Squid fighting was just like "what?" because Kong is sitting here slamming the squid's head into the bottom of the lake which must change depths fairly frequently from very deep to very shallow. I noticed this throughout the whole movie, especially the ending scene where Mason Weaver is knocked into water that I was led to believe was once again, shallow, but ended up being extremely deep as the camera panned to underwater and we see her falling down to the depths.
I do realize now, however, that this film was made for Kong vs Godzilla and that this movie is purely for the fighting. I thought the CGI was pretty damn good, I loved the way the lizards looked besides the anatomy. Kong looked even cooler. But the characters, script, and acting eventually became so atrocious I didn't mind the mom and two teenage boys chit chatting it up and laughing hysterically while trying to remain quiet at whatever was so funny...
Another point I wanna bring up is John C. Reilly's character. I really did not think the comedy he brought to this was necessary at all. It felt decently forced, and it really ruined the flow of the scene. Also, a guy who crashed here with a dead best friend that tried to kill him during WW2 and lived with Tribal Members that hardly talk for 28 years and is still 100% sane... how?
I also was fairly surprised the Tribe was not cannibalistic or aggressive. They were fairly friendly to the explorers, which is 100% different from Peter Jackson's King Kong.
Maybe I got spoiled by Logan(which is by far one of my #1 films in the last 4 years) or something, but if you go into the theater expecting a good fight, then you're there for the right reason. The movie is going to be cheesy, it's gonna be slightly edgy with the romance that never really even happened... even though the characters obviously showed a romantic interest.
My final closing thoughts are; Go in and enjoy the CGI and Fighting, I'll be nice and give it a 6/10. Just don't mind the clutter and acting/script.