"An uncharted island? Let me list all the ways you're going to die."

Rating: 10/10 (11 March 2017)

Kick ass update of King Kong, with a group of scientists on a remote, uncharted island in the South Pacific, falling prey to a variety of over- sized creatures. Initially, we're led to believe they are lead by Kong, we later learn they are being kept at bay by him.
I was slightly worried by its writing credits " Story by John Gatins, screenplay by Dan Gilroy and Max Borenstein and Derek Connolly " which, as per Writer's Guild regulations means that each of the writers worked separately, independent of each other, which is why their names are all separated by the word * and *, rather than a comma, or an ampersand ( & ) , which might lead to a scatter shot, cluster**** of a screenplay, but my concerns were quickly forgotten, as this is engaging from minute one.
The filmmakers got away with a lot of gore, and a bit more violence than expected, considering the film's PG rating, which usually results in a watered down, family friendly time-waster. But the film has several moments of gore, and its climactic battles were surprisingly violent and gory, but not distractingly so.
A lot of intentional humour also relieves the tension, and gives the audience a chance to breathe, in between carnage.
Two minor quibbles: the overuse of classic rock songs (which bore me due to their overexposure in general) and the under-use of beautiful Tian Jing (who is mostly just standing in the background, and has only a handful of lines in the entire film)