Entertaining Enough for Multiple Viewings.

Rating: 6/10 (16 September 2019)

Review:
'Kong: Skull Island' is an American monster film directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts. The film is a reboot of the King Kong franchise, and serves as the second film in Legendary's MonsterVerse. Some people go to the movies to be wowed by the superb acting, heart wrenching and well written story, and overall solid production. This has a good story and good effects. The acting isn't bad, but it isn't award winning.
The story has characters Bill Randa and Houston Brooks (John Goodman and Corey Hawkins) piggybacking on an expedition to an uncharted island to test a theory they've been working on. The first hirer a tracker names James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston) and assemble a team of highly trained Military professionals lead by Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson). As they enter the island, they start dropping seismic explosives, which create mini earthquakes for them to be able to map out the island. Suddenly, the air unit is attacked by the giant ape, scattering the survivors across the island. Two groups form between the survivors: Conrad, Mason Weaver (Brie Larson) and one of the soldiers gather quickly, while Randa and the rest of the soldiers land a few miles away. Packard goes in search of the transport helicopter piloted by his right-hand man Major Jack Chapman, (Toby Kebbell) intending to use the weapons on board to kill the ape that killed most of his men.
This movie much like Godzilla has some great talent, but it ruined with boring characters. Brie Larson plays a photographer and I have no idea what she is doing there. Anyone of these trained for combat officers could use a camera to document what is happening instead of endangering the life of a civilian. Her character didn't need to be in it and seemed to just be added to have the female character that Kong needs. John C. Reilly plays a surprisingly funny WW2 vet marooned on the island. Other then the actors playing the roles they were given; they are not fleshed out at all. We learn nothing about where they were before we see them in the film or why some of them have the talents they have.
I enjoyed the action in this movie, and Kong looked good, almost all the creatures looked realistic and all the fights between them looked good. Some of the green screen effects, like backgrounds behind characters, were distractingly bad. Ultimately, you get some great stuff out of all the effects if you're not looking too closely.
Overall, this movie is an entertaining story with lots of destruction. It's enjoyable for what it is, a monster movie with lots of action. The characters are lackluster and not all the likeable. You will be going into this for the entertainment factor and not so much the character development.
3/5