The best possible outcome of a movie about a big ape.

Rating: 8/10 (9 March 2017)

Non-spoiler review:
It definitely exceeded all of my expectations in every single sense of the word. I didn't expect it to be any good, maybe Jurrassic World level "fun" at best, but it was a genuinely good movie I enjoyed a lot. Not only were the visuals beautiful, the CGI was great, but what stood out to me was definitely the amount of fun ideas they had, a few beautifully done animals, a few really creative scenes, and some really fun nods to earlier movies that totally made sense in universe, without being too on the nose. It was definitely the most fun I've had at the movies this year so far, maybe due to my low expectations, but it was just really really well done as well. Now obviously you shouldn't expect some masterpiece, it's still a movie about a big monkey, but as far as blockbusters go, this was a great one.
Spoiler review:
As I just mentioned I loved a lot of the ideas they had, the flashing camera for instance was a great idea that made for a great scene and you felt the suspense perfectly, and the gas-mask-samurai scene was so incredibly ridiculous but that's what made it so fun. I loved the small nods to the earlier movies, like the "love interest" of Kong being there, yet really not coming into play at all during the movie, and the chains Kong was wrapped up in, yet broke loose of. I really enjoyed the editing as well, from the small bobble heads to the clear fighting scenes. Nothing felt hurried, nothing felt slow. I remember one wide-shot of Kong fighting the big skull crawler that was absolutely gorgeous.
Now my only real complaint of this movie lays in his villain. It's Samuel L. Jackson playing Samuel L. Jackson. His motive made sense, his character made sense, but in the end, it's still another man scared of something bigger than him. I believe his inclusion wasn't completely necessary, and they could've probably relied on them just trying to escape the island, but I get why they needed a villain in there. All in all, apart from the villain and a few jokes that fell flat, it was as good as a King Kong movie can be.