A Kong sized turd of a movie but like all good turds there's enjoyment to be had.

Rating: 6/10 (6 May 2017)

Kong: Skull Island
"Quick somebody pen a new King Kong movie so we can have him and Godzilla kick the crap out of each other!"
You can almost hear the studio execs at Warner Brothers shriek those very words down the corridors of their HQ.
First things first. We need to give Kong his own standalone movie before he goes toe to claw with the Zilla. So this is what we end up with.
'Skull Island' Is a painting by numbers run of the mill Monster B movie but with a mega budget.
Shame none of that budget seems to have gone on a decent script!
It's not as a if the talent involved here was bad. Far from it. The problem is that nothing in this movie is memorable.
I couldn't tell you what any of the characters were called. In fact the only character of any substance was that of John C Reilly's.
Tom Hiddleston is unconvincing as the butch hero. Too fine featured to carry off the macho man persona. The next James Bond? I don't think so! Samuel L Jackson is just, well err, Samuel L Jackson. Brie Larson doesn't need to waste her time in this sort of tosh and John Goodman? Please man go back to Roseanne! As for the rest of the cast. I can't remember any them.
The story tells of an undiscovered island surrounded by stormy weather. Rumour has it that this island harbours some pretty terrifying creatures so a crew of soldiers and scientists go off to get eaten and stood on. On arrival the twentyteen helicopters are one by one trashed by one big irritated monkey!
I say twentyteen because it may as well be a made up number since I think about only four helicopters set off from the battleship. Then they miraculously multiplied as they went through the storm clouds. Hardly anything in this movie makes sense. Why would helicopters keep flying really close to a giant ape after witnessing it smash one up with what looked like a giant pineapple?
After crash landing Sam Jackson is rather upset that Kong has killed his buddies and goes on a mission to bring the big hairy beast down. Absolutely ridiculous! All of a sudden he's now capable of taking on a one hundred foot ape with a few rifles and a vexed expression. While he's off trying to bring down the beast the rest of the crew just want to get off the island as one by one they are picked off by giant spiders and all sorts of terrible monsters. This movie could have been great! The special effects are top notch but the whole movie seems like a rushed project in order to get to the Kong vs Godzilla movie. Trust me Kong my boy you need to do some serious growing before you go trash talking to that big Lizard.
Other positives are that we do see Kong right from the beginning unlike 2005's King Kong where we had to sit through an hour of character building before someone cried
"Show me the monkey!"
Also comparing this film to its Monsterverse sharing Godzilla.
In that movie we basically just saw a giant foot for most part of the movie. At least here we do get some serious monster mayhem.
'Kong: Skull Island "is somewhat of a disappointment but despite all my complaining after revisiting this movie several times it is a guilty pleasure and gets better when you ignore the many illogical plot holes.
It also looks and sounds fabulous on Blu-ray.
It's one of those movies that you know is utter tripe but you find yourself being drawn in by it. That is what pure entertainment is all about.
Anyway who cares what I think?
'Kong: Skull Island' will still make a Gazillions dollars. All the actors will be paid handsomely and there will be an inevitable equally crap but entertaining sequel.
Bring it on!