'Kong: Skull Island' Review

Kong: Skull Island Review:

On Like Donkey Kong

BY IAN TAN

This would be a great VR experience

Kong: Skull Island comes from the guys who brought us the 2014 reboot of Godzilla, which was a successful reboot, but a rather slow-burn one at that. Skull Island attempts to ride on that film’s success, correct its flaws, and … wait for it… kickstart a shared movie universe dubbed the MonsterVerse. As we know, when done right, shared movie universes can succeed with flying colours, a la the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but when done wrong, things can get really messy, a la the DC Extended Universe. So how does Kong: Skull Island fare as a shared universe set-up?

Much like 2014’s Godzilla, the best parts about Skull Island are all the scenes that involve the titular monster and the other monsters he fights. Also like Godzilla, the worst parts of the film come whenever the humans are on screen, which is a shame considering that this film has a stellar cast. John C. Reilly was pretty good in his role as the stranded war soldier longing to get back to the world. Reilly gave the character some levity and heart, and was by far the film’s most interesting character. Besides Reilly, Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson and John Goodman's characters are paper thin, which makes it pretty hard for the audiences to care about them especially when they're caught in perilous situations. The flaw here lies not in the performances (the actors do their best), but in the script, which is filled with hallow, one-dimensional action movie archetypes. The many failed attempts at humour don’t help either. I’m disappointed to say this but, as uninteresting as the characters were in Godzilla, the characters here are even blander.

A Jurassic World escapee

Another downside to this film is its disjointed editing and poor tonal shifts from scene to scene. There just doesn’t seem to be enough connective tissue between each moment. Couple that with intense scenes followed immediately by humourous ones and we get a pretty weird emotional experience. It also feels as though some large chunks of character moments were trimmed down to tighten up the film’s runtime, which doesn’t do the film any favours as the characters don’t go through very much development, nor do they have much depth to them.

Caesar?

Humans aside, every scene with Kong or any of the other creatures of Skull Island are all fun scenes to behold on the big screen, especially in 3D.  Industrial Light & Magic, the visual effects gurus behind the creatures and environments we see in the film, have done a solid job in bringing the beautiful but terrifying world of Skull Island to life. Kong’s introduction and final battle are especially impressive, and indie director Jordan Vongt-Roberts proves he knows how to handle scale and spectacle. And while the action is very entertaining, nothing here really tops the awesome Kong versus. T-Rex sequence in Peter Jackson’s King Kong in 2005.  The helicopter sequence during Kong’s introduction in this film however, was stunning.

 

Frame this up.

In a nutshell, Kong: Skull Island feels like a typical summer action blockbuster with big spectacle, hallow characters and an on-the-nose post-credit set up for the next movie in the franchise. It’s a fun ride whenever Kong and the Skull Crawlers show up, but at other times it does get a little boring due to its poor characters, some jarring editing choices, and awkward tonal shifts.

Score: 6 out of 10