It's not terrible - Spoilers

Rating: 6/10 (19 March 2017)

It's got clichéd characters, every Viet Nam war movie cliché including the stock Viet Nam movie soundtrack, I mean, you can almost predict the songs, some bad casting and dumb decisions of course, where you really couldn't care less if they all die.
The worst cast character is the tough tracker played by Tom Hiddleston, who I don't buy as a tough guy in this or any other universe. We see him kick some butt at the beginning and it doesn't ring true in any sense, total Hollywood hokum. He has the tough guy grimace across his face the entire movie and it's laughable, he's not tough at all. But his hair is. Nary a hair is out of the place the entire movie.
There's just dumb stuff throughout. Samuel Jackson HAS to kill Kong because Kong killed some of his men - never mind it means never getting off the island. The main guy and girl all of a sudden are on Kong's side because of a two minute meeting where Kong's face is right up against them, she pets him and now they're all buddies. Now they're going to risk their lives to save him. And there's tons of dumb things because of bad writing in the movie, but the dumbest is the boat floating down the river hoping to get to the meeting point without getting eaten or killed by monsters, blasting rock music so every creature on the island knows exactly where they are. Mindbogglingly stupid.
John C. Reilly has been on the island for 28 years, finally gets home and not only has his wife barely aged and isn't married, his boy who was born the day he ended up on the island, has reversed aged and is about 22 and still living at home with his young single mom.
But there is good stuff. This isn't one of those annoying movies with the monster's name in the title and the monster is in about five minutes of the movie. Nope, Kong is in this a lot. And that's a good thing because this is a good Kong. He's more of a monster, than a silver-back like Jackson's version. He's bigger and you need bigger if he's supposed to face Godzilla. I liked the Kong a lot and I like his badassness.
I'm unclear on how they were supposed to keep it all a secret as they claimed they were when a bunch of people died. In reality, the military would reign down on that island a week later and kill everything. There's plot holes galore so go in knowing that and just enjoy a good Kong. The original Kong is one of my all time favorite movies and I even like the other two versions - but the one thing I hate and I never watch is the end because he dies. In this one he does not die. And that I like.