Okay; not great or average stuff, but okay all the same.

Rating: 6/10 (21 July 2018)

Kong: Skull Island is another attempt from Warner Brothers to launch a shared-universe since their DC-Extended Universe has gotten a bit rusty outside Wonder Woman. Anyway, how does the universe with a monkey and a Japanese dinosaur compare to the DCEU, let alone Disney's Marvel Cinematic Universe? Entertaining but not all that special either. There are war-movie cliches we've seen a dozen times before (helicopter imagery derived from Apocalypse Now) and disaster-movie tropes done in Jurassic Park (dumb characters not figuring out the obvious), and the same savage tribe from the other King Kong movies (although to be fair they do tone down the racism with them here).
Kong is still a money-magnet somewhat, but there seems to be a REAL strech to turn the King Kong canon into something like The Star Wars Expanded Universe or something. Hell, MARVEL was lucky in getting Iron Man to work on the big screen back in 2008. This shared universe thing is getting a bit tiring and these efforts seem half-assed and rushed in order to get in on an appealing craze without trying to tell a well-balanced story to get the audience in on at square one. Well, there might be more story to this franchise than Skull Island and its King, though I can't see all that much ahead of this movie just yet.
Skull Island gets 3/5 stars for me. Not a bad movie. Let it pass.