Not another cinematic universe movie

Rating: 4/10 (6 August 2017)

This film is set in the year Vietnam ended, 1973. And the production design is done very well. Sets, props, costumes, all to spec. I love history films, and its even better when you throw science fiction into the mix.
As has been said, this movie has some serious acting chops on board, and they do a good job. Michael Fassbend- I mean Tom Hiddleston is great! Although most of the characters are very flat, I can't blame the cast for that, and they do well with what they have to work with.
The soundtrack for this movie was surprising at times, and included a lot of song choices I really enjoyed. Most however were somewhat lacking in originality of choice. CCR's Run Through the Jungle perhaps being the laziest choice for any movie set in the jungle, ever. Especially since Credence is used in every Vietnam movie ever anyways. And this is a Vietnam movie.
The movies anti-war theme is prevalent, and not subtle. They very clearly draw a distinction between the destruction of the Vietnam war and the destruction of this separate Jungle environment, with the very same incendiary weapons. The imagery of the red and orange flames and the backdrop of a blue and green jungle is beautiful and striking. Perhaps the best part visually of the movie.
The Computer generated effects seemed to be lacking here. Kong is likely the best looking monster in the movie, and he doesn't look much better than Peter Jackson's version. He certainly looks worse than Caesar from Planet of the Apes. The dire water buffalo looked cool the first time, but lacked realism and grit. I got very tired of seeing them. The spider looked very good. The "skull crawlers" (stupid name, even with a thinly veiled excuse in the dialogue) were very generic, which was fine. But I expected "the big one" to have a bit more flair. Instead of getting Ubisoft, they should try to get Nintendo to design their monster next time. I don't know if they actually used Ubisoft, but those things definitely looked like a bad video game enemy, and the big one like a slightly stronger variant that looks hardly any different.
I'll also say the sound design is very lazy. Nothing about it intrigued me anyways, and Kong sounded like they threw four different animals in a blender and just went with whatever came out. I get there's only so much you can do, but when it's supposed to sound like you're sitting in front of a giant ape breathing, but it actually sounds like you're on acid at the zoo, you know you're doing something wrong.
Now, for the writing, the Achilles' Heel of every major blockbuster these days.
*Spoilers ahead*
So John Goodman tells everyone they are going to drop bombs for a geological survey. Makes perfect sense right? I'm pretty sure the atomic bomb was developed for mapping the Mariana trench.
I get that it's not supposed to make sense, but come on, it's just lazy. And it's just an excuse for
Big Dumb Action Scene! They drop bombs in the forest, killing all the CG deer (assumingly by reducing their hit points to zero), and angering "the monkey". Never mind that nobody ever gets corrected calling an ape a monkey, this scene is stupid because no soldier in his right mind would start shooting at something big enough to swat him out of the sky without being given an explicit order to fire. And absolutely no sane pilot would go along with it either. The whole scene where the helicopters fight Kong is just unnecessary pseudo apocalypse porn, which would be fine if it didn't ruin the story. At that point, these characters who I had grown to really like, became a bunch o stupid assholes who deserved to get killed. And at that point it's like, "well Kong's going to kill them now, I guess I'll sit back and enjoy", which is very disheartening, to get invested in a group of characters and become resigned to their fate because they start acting like jerks. Sure, I still cared about Brie and Tom, but not a lot. I don't think there was much given to like about Tom except that he was competent, and Brie except that she was Idealistic.
John Goodman was the worst of them all. It was his crappy plan to lure Kong out with bombs. Why not use the world class tracker you hired, hunt kong down, and use the bombs on him?! That would make more sense! I have a feeling that was probably the original script, with much more mystery and exploration. Maybe a little survival here and there, mixed in with a lot of biological horror. But I'm sure the studio decided they wanted a big, smashy smashy explodey CG orgy right at the beginning so people didn't fall asleep, so here we go. Stupid plot point about trying to get Kong to destroy all their transport, so they can take a picture, and in a desperate last ditch effort for survival, trek cross country through the most dangerous terrain on planet earth so we can hopefully get picked up by another chopper, and take the pictures back to the military so we can start a campaign to fund an attack expedition back to the island to finally kill Kong. Because taking a picture of a one of a kind animal defending it's home habitat, being gunned down by Vietnam era U.S. military issue helicopters, would definitely rouse support for the most difficult assassination in human history, where there are no resources at stake or definable threats we are defending against, would definitely win over the hearts of the American people into another military conflict against a freaking monkey! (Ape)