Kong: Skull Island 2D Review

Rating: 8/10 (23 March 2017)

Kong: Skull Island 2D Review Watching Kong: Skull Island was mostly like watching my childhood dreams being reborn. As I marveled at the overgrown ruins of Skull Island and at the ginormous King Kong, the film caught my attention like a fish on a line. Why are our main characters on this deadly uncharted island in the first place? The year is 1973 and a group of explorers accompanied by US soldiers want to explore Skull Island to find the source that the US has been dropping bomb tests on. Even though the actors did a fine job of portraying the explorers, I didn't feel fully connected with them and the only actors I would really remember were Samuel L. Jackson's Preston Packard who seeks revenge on King Kong for killing his men in self-defence and John C. Reilly who played as an American war Lieutenant known as Hank Marlow who crashed landed on Skull Island in during World War 2 and had lived on the Island since. But even though the story served a valid enough excuse to go to Skull Island, the real magic of the film was in the action. When I first saw the hairy and battle-scared King Kong arise and swat helicopters out of the sky like they were flies, I felt a great sense of nostalgia like I felt as a child watching the Hulk. I also watched in amazement as King Kong tore apart a giant Octopus with his bare hands. I knew from watching this that King Kong was not to be underestimated. But there wasn't just Kong on the island. There were other atrocities too, such as a giant spider that impaled an unfortunate solider through the mouth with one of its legs. There were also the terrifying Skull Crawlers, hideous giant reptile-like monsters that created a giant aura of fear and savageness around them. They were so strong, that one of them sent a man flying hundreds of feet in the air with the flick of their massive tail. I was also amazed by the scale and sight of Skull Island too. Everything from the forest to the unholy wildlife intimidated me of the secret yet sinister powers of Skull Island. After, doing a bit of handy research on IMDb (International Movie Datebase) I found that Skull Island was shot with the Arri Alexa XT Plus and had Dolby Atmos Sound. This made the film gorgeous and pulse-racing even in the 2D screening that I saw which is something I thank the producers for spending a good part of the film's budget on. However, the film had a habit of killing the music before King Kong or other monsters lunged out to attack, which unfortunately made the jump scares predictable.
But overall, I had a well fun ride with Kong: Skull Island. The setting of the island was intimidating and felt realistic in a fantasy setting, King Kong was portrayed exceptionally as a giant ape and the fearsome king of the island, the other monsters were menacing and captivating and the many epic fight scenes throughout kept my attention from start to finish, despite many of the characters feeling forgettable and the jump scares giving you fair warning before they happened. But if you're looking for a thrilling monster move from the producers of 2014's Godzilla, then Kong: Skull Island should be next on your 2017 watch list. 8.5/10