Not a god, but still a King.

Rating: 7/10 (16 November 2019)

Having already seen GODZILLA (2014) and GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS (2019), the first and third films in Legendary's 'Monsterverse' franchise, I eventually got around to watching second entry KONG: SKULL ISLAND. Liked it, with some minor reservations. Despite being quite different in tone to the other two films, visually it's still recognisably part of the same universe. Legendary clearly took to heart some of the main criticisms made about their initial GODZILLA - namely that it was (i.) too dark and (ii.) didn't feature enough of the title creature - by this time having all but one of the action scenes take place in broad daylight, with Kong debuting in the first five minutes. The human characters play a larger role in the proceedings (loved the moment when Mason shot a flare into The Big One's eye), probably reflecting Kong's lesser status within the Monsterverse: he may be a god on Skull Island, but place him outside in the wider world and Kong is just an oversized ape, whereas Godzilla and his fellow Titans truly are gods and "the rightful rulers of Earth."
My one big disappointment with SKULL ISLAND was that it's 1973 setting was ultimately just window dressing. You could replace the Hueys with Blackhawks, update the soldiers' uniforms and equipment, portray them as veterans of the Iraq war or Syrian conflict instead of Vietnam, and tell the exact same story. I was hoping the immediate post-Nam setting would be more relevant.