A Flashy Reimagined Kong With Flaw

Rating: 7/10 (11 January 2019)

21 March 2017. With shades of the classic war movies Good Morning Vietnam (1987) and Apocalypse Now (1979) and perhaps even the monster epic Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959) and perhaps Jurassic Park 1993), this reimagined Kong movie begins with both a measured surprise and a quite different Kong movie that shows a lot of promise. Nevertheless, the script eventually falls flat in places as the plot points become more important than the realistic strategic or authentic flow from scene to scene. A huge example of the manipulation of a screen stretched to the breaking point in order to maintain the director's or producer's intended rational for a scene later in the movie is the first gigantic encounter between man and beast and it's pretty much an overkill and unbelievable disaster for man. And at almost regular intervals thereafter there are humans that seem to fall prey in order to show off some special effect cuteness that really doesn't do much for the movie and with little rationale except attempt to justify the cost of the movie. This sort of demise is repeated over and over again just in order to perhaps reduce the number of characters to manageable proportions and extend the time of the movie. A lot of editing and cutting would probably have made the pacing of this adventure action movie much more palpable. Nevertheless, the plot outline of this Kong version is very distinctive and admirable in concept and there are some great individual scenes and photographic images that boggle the mind. The ending credits film images also is a plus along with the outstanding presence of John C. Reilly almost carries the show.