Let's remake the monkey movie

Rating: 4/10 (13 March 2017)

It seems that like Godzilla, every ten years or so another movie comes along to once again flog this age old concept to death. Okay, when it comes to big monsters stomping around the place, King Kong is just one of the many movies that seem to hit our screens year in and year out, but the big monkey seems to be one of those creatures that always draws the crowds, if the number of people in the cinema is anything to go by (and considering that this is Salisbury Cinemas then a crowded cinema does say something, though they are refurbishing half of their screens anyway). The other interesting thing, as picked up by some internet blogger, is that every time King Kong is reborn he seems to get bigger and bigger. Personally I'm in no real position to compare since I don't go out of my way to see King Kong movies and the only reason I saw this one was because I thought my brother would like it.
Anyway, this movie is set in the early 1970s and the space race and satellite imaging has revealed an island in the south pacific that nobody knew anything about. Actually, people do know about it because it turns out that it has been a graveyard for ships and airplanes for decades, namely because it is surrounded by a perpetual storm and anybody going into the storm generally doesn't come out. However, there are rumours that there are monsters on this island, so this government organisation that is on the verge of having its funding cut, manages to convince congress to approve one last bill, and off they go on a good old monster hunt.
The thing that caught my attention to this movie is that while it is more than just a movie about a giant monkey (and the thing is that monkies, or at least apes, don't actually live in the South Pacific), but rather about even nastier monsters that the giant ape is keeping under control. Mind you, all of the iterations of the King Kong movie has been about people who have gone out of their way to capture an ape from an island in the South Pacific even though this ape isn't actually harming anybody, and then finding out that it has escaped, has grabbed some woman, and climbed to the top of the Empire State Building. Okay, this one follows a slightly different plot in that the entire movie (with the exception of the introduction) is set on the island, but it isn't much different to your typical monster movie.
One thing about this movie is that it is typical Hollywood criticism of how the various departments in the United States government play games of secret squirrel with each other, how the military are basically used as grunts to push forward the government's world dominating agenda, and how the only thing that battle hardened soldiers know is how to do is fight in battle. Oh, and there is also a comment on how the eco-system is a finely balanced machine that if it is tipped too far in the wrong direction then really really bad things would happen. However, movies like these aren't subtle in their execution, and coupled with bad acting, there rather blatant used of eye-candy (which shows them up as hypocrites), and the fact that it is a monster movie disguised as a morality tale, really rubs me up the wrong way. Sure, they may be making some good points, but the way they go about it is more like a sledge hammer, which in some cases is probably what is needed, but not where I am concerned.