Ape v. Skullcrawler: Kong of Justice

Rating: 8/10 (14 March 2017)

Hero or foe? Beauty or beast? Poor King Kong and his monstrous cronies have spent decades of hopping back and forth on the morality spectrum, swayed by the ideological whims of their times. But this, to paraphrase the Canadian Prime Minister, is 2017. And lo - our Kong is a benevolent God, leaving no prayer unanswered. Take, for example, those volumes of prayers uttered (with varying degrees of accompanying profanity) after Kong's scaly cousin reared his irradiated head for a grand total of twelve minutes in 2014's dour, insultingly underwhelming Godzilla. Too little monster mash? Too much jingoistic military pandering? And, more than anything, too gosh darn dark, self-important, and serious? Kong, your God, has heard your prayers. And Skull Island is indeed a place where dreams come true.
If you're looking for the most evocative translation of a comic book to screen in years, you won't find it in any superhero flick. Instead, indie maverick Jordan Vogt-Roberts fearlessly plunges his directorial hand into the hornet's nest of Kong's pop art potential, and shakes it for all it's worth. Enough striking, stylized candy-coloured panoramas to put Zack Snyder to shame? Check. A smorgasbord of pop culture references, aping (HA!) everything from Platoon to Jurassic Park, Aliens and more, with a playlist vying Guardians of the Galaxy for jukebox infectiousness? Yep. A cabal of established actors as cardboard cutouts running by green screens and gleefully chewing scenery? Definitely. And, most importantly, a f*ck-ton of big monsters smashing into one another? Ohhhh baby, yes. Welcome to your monthly periodical of big-budget pulp. And it is gloriously unapologetic.
Kong: Skull Island may not have lofty ambitions, but it accomplishes them with furious gusto. Peter Jackson's 2005 love letter to the eighth wonder of the world devoted almost an hour to pre-island backstory and character developments. Vogt-Roberts jettisons plot in favour of momentum, ramming a comparable amount of preamble into roughly fifteen minutes, largely composed of John Goodman (the right blend of grave and twinkling, but criminally underused) booming out expositional word bubbles that almost serve to gloss over the film's scientific hokum. If 2014's Godzilla felt like a surly military recruitment video, 70s-set Skull Island is its pop-punk cousin - Apocalypse Now's Vietnam critique cut with the obnoxious zippiness of Top Gun. And audiences have to patiently bide their time for a whopping three minutes before the titular behemoth triumphantly crashes onto the scene. If you listen carefully over the ensuing spontaneous rounds of cheering, you might just hear Gareth Edwards face- palming from the back of the cinema.
As for the "let them fight" factor? Let's just say that no one could argue Vogt-Roberts squandered his $185 million, as he seldom makes audiences wait through an entire scene without dangling a new show-stopping creature feature in front of them. Painstakingly etched with impressively credible CGI, his monsters don't crawl out of the woodwork - they ARE the woodwork, a menagerie of rapturously inventive, Miyazaki-inspired giant insects, implausibly antlered behemoths, skulking krakens, frenzied pterosaurs, and the monster-du-jour "Skullcrawlers," who are fearfully unique enough to not feel callously expendable. Oh, and that Kong guy? Never cooler. From his unprecedentedly imposing stature to each strand of fur and dribble of spit rendered with impeccable care, Kong. Is. King. And these monsters don't just fight - they FIGHT, thrashing each other with phenomenal energy, menace, and ingenuity, with no nearby foliage or debris safe from being thrown into the fray, as Henry Jackman's thunderously kitschy score provides a delightfully melodramatic backdrop. Most importantly? No infuriating pieces of foreground set c*ck-blocking the fun. And yet, for a movie so assuredly dumb, Skull Island is surprisingly beautiful, with more boundless, lush natural panoramas, craggy cliffs, and dazzling, Life of Pi-riffing Aurora Borealis than you can shake a stomped cephalopod at. This visual feast may be more of a all-you-can-eat buffet of spectacle gluttony, but it's money deliriously well-spent.
And the actual humans who occasionally, irksomely, pop up? Well, it's here that tolerance for Vogt-Roberts' commitment to B-movie storytelling is really tested. Jubilantly one-note and generally obstinately committed to ludicrous character motivations (one "Let's go save Kong!" reversal reduced our cinema to outright unsolicited chuckles), the cast are gamely committed to taking the silliness seriously. Tom Hiddleston may smoulder like a pro, but his generic action hunk is so superfluous he could be lopped out of the film without affecting the plot in the slightest. And hey - that'd leave more breathing room for poor Oscar winner Brie Larson, trying her best to flex her jaunty charisma amidst the din. Still, din requires shouters, and, therein, none compare to Samuel L. Jackson, who outdoes his propensity to never let daft material clip his wings, spitting out an obsessive, antagonistic bent to his volcanic magnetism, complete with one of the best seething glowers in cinema history. Though toeing the line of too many characters, Corey Hawkins, Jason Mitchell, Toby Kebbell, and Shea Wingham all breathe enough energy and personality into their requisite grunts to avoid being expendable monster fodder. Still, we're all waiting for the indescribably hilarious John C. Reilly to breeze in and waltz away with the picture as a stranded, samurai sword-brandishing WWII vet/goldmine of bug-eyed goofiness, side-splitting non- sequiturs ("Hey, did we win the war?"), and actual, unexpected, emotional arc. He's an almost questionably Looney Tunes addition, but Reilly's confident zaniness is almost as worth it as Kong himself.
If Legendary is priming their own monstrous Avengers, Kong: Skull Island is its Captain America: The First Avenger - period-set, and bursting with irreverent, bombastic nostalgic fun. And hey - if he beckons in an era of equally rambunctious, unapologetic B-movie blockbusters that don't skimp on quality, Kong is a kind and fair God indeed. Place your gladiatorial bets for 2020 - and eat it, Batman v. Superman!
-8/10