"Kong: Skull Island"- A trashy B-movie with a $180 million budget and an A-list cast. Whether that's for better or for worse is up to you to decide.

Rating: 6/10 (25 May 2017)

Since the critical and commercial success of 2014's American "Godzilla" reboot, there have been consistent murmurings of a "MonsterVerse" courtesy production company Legendary Entertainment. The goal? Bring together various properties based on massive city-stomping creatures and remake them for modern audiences. And here, just a few short years later, we have the long-awaited second chapter in this expanding franchise- 2017's hammy and quirky, but fairly entertaining "Kong: Skull Island", based of course on the classic character King Kong of cinematic royalty.
Directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts, the film is very much a sort-of throwback feature, taking notes and inspiration from various trashy B monster-movies of the 60's, 70's and 80's and giving them a modern day spit-and-polish with top-notch CGI and A-list on-screen talent. The result is a troubled but fun little excursion into the unknown, with all the old tropes and clichés that we know and (maybe) love and plenty of contemporary action and effects. Really, the film is your basic creature feature and your enjoyment will be heavily reliant on your love for the old stereotypes contained within. If you can have fun with the material and look past its faults and occasional over- reliance on what's come before, you'll have a fun time. If not? Well, you best steer clear.
We follow a motley crew of characters in the 1970's from all walks of life... researchers, soldiers, a magazine photographer and a no- holds-barred anti-hero animal tracker- as they travel to the mythical "Skull Island", seemingly on a mission map out the only recently discovered landmass before the Russians. However, upon arrival, things take an interesting turn when it is discovered that the island is home to not only a local tribe of natives, but massive creatures of all types- including a great ape known as "Kong." Teaming up with a marooned World War II veteran, the group is forced into a fight to escape... but at the same time, a nefarious and over-the-edge Colonel amongst their numbers has his sights set on Kong for his own dark reasons...
To get it out of the way, the cast is great for the most part. There's a lot of really solid performers here. From the likes of cinematic icons such as Samuel L. Jackson and John Goodman to modern day superstars like Brie Larson and Tom Hiddleston... to comedy powerhouses like John C. Reilly, everyone is on point and giving it their all. While I do think some of the minor supporting characters and performances come up short (Jason Mitchell and Shea Whigham in particular both being shockingly flat in comparison to their other work as soldiers along for the mission), all the lead players do very good work here and are a joy to watch. Terry Notary and Toby Kebbell (who also plays one of the soldiers) provide the various motion capture techniques that bring Kong to life, and to be fair, Kong and their combined performances are quite stunning. While his screen time is limited, Kong feels like a real living, breathing being and you do get some real emotion from his character. While I could nit-pick and argue that I preferred the character as he was portrayed in the previous 2005 reboot... Kong is definitely in good hands in the MonsterVerse.
And when the film reaches its stride, it's just consistently fun and completely engaging. Director Vogt-Roberts delivers some wonderful visual powerhouse sequences of Kong and the other monsters of Skull Island going at it, and a few genuinely eerie moments as the characters struggle to survive. A stand-out scene involving a 10-story spider was among my favorite moments, as was a chilling bone-year chase sequence as our heroes must evade enormous underground creeps known as "Skull Crawlers." It's when the action picks up that the film started to win me over big-time, and I'm thankful that this point is reached relatively early on.
However, the film is not perfect by a long stretch, and looking over the other reviews, I can definitely see the problems. In striving to make such a fun throw-back feature, the creative minds behind "Kong" do shoot themselves in the foot more than once. We've seen this story before. We know these types of characters. And we've all witnessed these very same dialog exchanges and bar-room brawls and epic battles many times before. It can make the film a chore in its earlier scenes, and rob some of the suspense because we know what's coming much of the time. It can be fun in how archetypal it all is... but it can also be quite frustrating. In addition, the writing for the bulk of the supporting roles is pretty abysmal, with the many side-characters feeling vapid and interchangeable, which lessens the impact of the film. The intent is noble, but the execution leaves quite a bit to be desired at times.
Still, I had a decent time. The effects are outstanding, the performers likable and the monster battles completely and utterly glorious in their scale. "Kong: Skull Island" isn't the best film starring the massive monkey (I know he's not really a monkey)... but it's serviceable enough and sets the stage for other monsters to join in on the fun. It's a fun time at the movies. Nothing more. Nothing less. And so, I give it an about-average 6 out of 10.