You know what....I just don't care!

Rating: 3/10 (22 June 2017)

In 1933 a classic was born. Using now archaic equipment and techniques, over the top 1930's acting and a particularly humanoid stop-motion "giant" gorilla Radio Pictures brought us a ground breaking movie that inspired monster movies for years to come.
I love King Kong.
Fast forward to 2005 (let's forget the mostly terrible off-shoots and 1976 remake) and enter Peter Jackson who did with King Kong what he seems to do best...take an old well loved tale, re-tell it with bang up to date special effects and then stretch it to it's enth degree. Despite the 2005 remake being far too long, I still loved King Kong
Then this.......I dunno even what insult to throw at it.
In the previous films you cared about the characters, like 'em or loathe 'em you cared, you had emotions about them and you wanted Kong to survive, even though you knew that the combination of Carl Denholm's greed and Ann Darrow's beauty would be his undoing, long before the planes got to him.
Did I care about any of the characters in Kong :Skull Island? Well, I kinda hoped Hank Marlow (John C Reilly) got home and he was the most charismatic character in there, but then...he was a bit nuts. I kinda wanted Col. Packard (Sam L Jackson) to get squished and I did kinda hope Kong got through it without dying but....I really couldn't have cared less if none of those things happened. Tom Hiddleston was verrry British as ex-SAS man, James Conrad and...there were some other people too but...well...who cares?
The CGI isn't what it could be, the story bears all the hallmarks of having been written by a ten year old and good actors give performances that are memorable only for how unconvincing they are (not that it's necessarily their fault, one cannot make a silk purse from a sow's ear). The whole movie is merely a vehicle to set-up "King Kong vs Godzilla" which, given the mediocrity of both this and the Godzilla movie, I can only imagine how dreadful that will be.
The kids might like it, but if they're over the age of 12 and have any intelligence, I doubt it. John C Reilly is the only reason this didn't get one star.