Could have been better

Rating: 5/10 (22 July 2019)

The film starts in 1944, when two World War II air pilots both crash land on an island. They engage in close combat when they are interrupted by the appearance of King Kong.
It then goes to 1973. Two people (I've forgotten their names), who believe in the existance of monsters, are given permission to go to Skull Island to search for these monsters. The two people hire James Conrad, a tracker (Tom Hiddleston) and Mason Weaver, an anti-war photographer (Brie Larson), and then hire Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson), with his men, to escort them to Skull Island.
None of the hired help knows what they're really going there for. They believe it is to test out seismic explosives to see if the earth really is hollow. Once on the island, they begin dropping the explosives, but that grabs the attention of King Kong. They are attacked and the survivors are all spread out over the island.
They now have to find each other and reach a rendezvous point where the group had arranged for some helicopters to take them away by a specific time. But King Kong isn't the only monster on the island.
My plot summary probably sucks, but that's as much as I can remember about the basic plot. It's an interesting story - and some of the creatures play a role in the climax. It was very exciting, and had some humour. The acting was very good as well - particularly on Jackson's and Larson's part. I got a kick out of John C. Reilly's role in it - trying to imagine him as Wreck-It Ralph from "Wreck-It Ralph". But Reilly was very good.
I enjoyed the momentary fight with Kong and Krakken - it was interesting. The visual effects were awesome - they blended in very well with the live-action. It was very scary and quite tense. There were plenty of thrills and bordered on horror a few times - particularly when one of the large reptiles retches up on of the character's skull. I still feel like throwing up when I think about it.
I also got a particular kick out of three of the MCU cast being in it.
Also, I really loved Jackson's performance (I know I've mentioned this above), though I hated the character and harbored no regret at his death, which was deeply satisfying for me. The climax was excellent!!! Very, very tense, and scary. The movie is a little bit thought-provoking (for me, anyway).
But, it has it's flaws. After they crash-land, the movie seemed to focus too much on some of the characters encountering several over-sized animals and insects and getting killed by them until all the survivors finally meet up and it detracts from the plot and experience quite a lot. It's only in the latter part once all the survivors reunite that the movie really begins to shine and we get to have the excellent, excellent climax. Other than some of the characters being killed off, the rest of the movie is pretty enjoyable and quite good.
I also really loved the scene where Reilly's character is reunited with his family. I was scared that the filmmakers would kill him off, so was relived that he survived.
Conclusion: skip it.