What a mess

Rating: 2/10 (4 February 2018)

This film can't decide what it is.
First it wants to be Aliens: send a bunch of badass military dudes to rid the world of horrible monsters. Then it tries to be Jurassic Park: scientists dealing with out of control ancient species. And then it goes all Heart of Darknessy/Apocolypse Now with Samuel L. losing his sh**. And by the end it's Predator: human against alien species revenge for killing his men flick. But it doesn't do any of them well and the entire thing ends up feeling completely unnecessary.
They go to the island (which has been actively avoided since the beginning of time) to protect the world from the "monsters" who live there. What? The things never leave the island ... nobody's ever seen them ... but we need to destroy them before they destroy us. Right ...
Then the first thing they do once they reach this pristine untouched wilderness is drop a bunch of bombs on it. And when Kong comes out to defend the island he's branded a "monster" and they go immediately to "KILL IT!" Which in the end gets a lot of men killed ... oh but that's Kong's fault. Hey genius, how bout you turn the choppers around when the big monster comes ... run away ... save more men. But no ... Kong is the bad one.
Then they encounter a huge spider thing who's just strolling along and minding its own business ... it accidentally skewers a dude with one of its legs ... and instead of running away or hiding ... no they start shooting and hacking its legs off. So it defends itself ... kills more guys ... and they wind up butchering the poor thing ... probably the only one of its kind in the world.
So the military just stomps through destroying land and killing endangered species and calling themselves the good guys. And the Colonel gets WAY more guys killed going on his revenge mission than would've if he'd actually thought about the health and safety of his men. So is this supposed to be an anti-war film?
And then the film segues to a soldier who dropped there in WW2 and a strange mute civilization that worships Kong and then evil skull crusher lizards. So now you're really on Kong's team cuz he's like the protector of the people. Which is all just gearing up for the big showdown between Kong and head lizard which Kong wins of course.
And then there's the eyeroll-worthy push for the freaking "monster-universe" at the end ... gag. Ugh, Hollywood is just a bunch of greedy garbage pushers at this point. And they're so shameless about it. So yeah ... 2 stars.