Skull Candy

Rating: 8/10 (25 June 2017)

I thoroughly enjoyed Kong: Skull Island, for a few simple reasons. There's no obligatory romance distracting from the action, the visuals are absolutely stunning, the action is frantic, the characters are likable and the acting is first class. It was such a relief to see an action movie without long, drawn out scenes of pointless exposition or tired romantic tropes. Skull Island just gets down to business from the opening scene and doesn't let up until it's over.
The story is simple and not drawn out or blown up into tedious proportions. At the end of the Vietnam War a secret division of the US Government called Monarch discover the location of a mythical island and decide to investigate and map it before the "Commies" get a chance to after the war ends. After breaking through an almost impenetrable storm that surrounds the place all hell breaks loose, as Kong arrives and wreaks havoc. With limited time until a possible extraction the survivors of the team have to make it to the far end of the island within 3 days, through a perilous jungle of prehistoric and mythical creatures. It's like Jurassic Park on steroids.
Samuel L Jackson's character is interesting, at first sight he seems despondent that the Vietnam War is ending. The truth is he doesn't want war to end, he's become obsessed with war and is determined to die a soldier, so his later decision to abandon all sense and hunt Kong down to the detriment of an escape plan fits perfectly with the little we know of him. Tom Hiddleston is great as the tracker, Brie Larson and John Goodman have fun with their roles but the star of the show (Kong aside) is John C Reilly as a WWII pilot marooned on the island since 1945. He's a little stir crazy shall we say, and has some fun quips and an entertaining personality. Even the supporting cast are quite memorable and thankfully not one of them was annoying or incredulous.
The SFX are phenomenal. Kong has never looked better. The other creatures are inventive and interesting. It has a fun Vietnam-era soundtrack, and includes a great scene where they fly into the Island Apocalypse Now style with Paranoid by Black Sabbath blasting out of the speakers. That alone tells you this movie is not to be taking seriously, it's just a fun monster movie in the classic Kong and Godzilla mode, sit back and enjoy the fireworks and leave the pathos and hand wringing to other mediums.
8 out of 10 bananas.