No sympathy for the Ape

Rating: 3/10 (11 March 2017)

Gimme a 'K'; gimme an 'O' gimme an 'N', 'G'.........well half a chant is better than no chant at all. This is not the case with movies. We went based on reviews, primarily the ABC brekkie show. Thanks for that, ABC brekkie reviewer guy.
The story is set at the end of the Vietnam War. Satellites have found an island that generates it's own weather and has therefore remained obscured from prying eyes.
It is called Skull Island but I don't know why unless someone had identified it as such in a Rorschach test. Me? I thought it looked a bit like a blood eagle. In my defence I've been watching 'Vikings'.
The Americans put together a team to go and drop bombs on the island. No surprises there. The team is headed by Sammy Jackson, who is so devoid of compassion that he'd happily groom kiddies for a lifetime gambling addiction resulting in abject poverty and eventual suicide by advertising an online betting site.
He has a team of hard-as-nails cavalry-helicopter types and he recruits The Night Manager to take this hard-as-nailness to the next level. He's an expert tracker although why you'd need an expert tracker to find a 90 foot ape is beyond me. He isn't even a very good tracker and at one stage loses the river they were following. In any case the Kongster isn't very good at hiding.
It starts off OK after the 'how we got here' preamble. An apocalypse of helicopters flies to the island and starts dropping their bombs. Kong doesn't take kindly to his island being Cambodianised and decides that the helicopters need swatting and swat like a crazy thing he does. He is a fine swatter! There is death and destruction. Paranoid, the Sabbath classic, is an excellent choice to accompany the swatting.
Inevitably, and somewhat sadly, there are survivors. And these survivors headed by Jacko swear vengeance upon the copter-swatter. Jacko loves war and killing stuff. He is an American. He is a hunter. But Kong is no Bambi.......
There are giant lizards and they do sterling work in thinning out the cast. There is a tribe of mutes, a WWII survivor and lots of miscellany who don't seem to have a reason for being there at all before (mostly) joining the ranks of the thinned. There are lizard birds too. They are unlikely to be first choice as pets, or kiddie-playmates.
Kong is shot and napalmed and has a death match with the mother of all lizards. Yes, echoes of 'The Great Wall'. Me? I'd like to see a haircut death match between the Trumpster and Kim Jong-un. Then I'd like to see Sean Spicer report it. Such are the dreams of ordinary men.....
The music is pretty good and we knew most of it. We got to meet Kong's parents. Well sort of.
Without wanting to ruin it for folk, a sequel is likely. We are unlikely to waste a Seniors Discount on it.
If your tastes run to death-and-destruction jungle movies with monsters, 'Predator' is a better choice. Even when he was being napalmed and shot and being bit by a ginormous lizard we didn't care very much. There were no sighs of 'poor Kong'. No moist eyes. Just a feeling of satisfaction that my bladder was not quite full when it ended.
On a par with 'The Great Wall'. Better than 'Interstellar'.