Kong: Skull Island

In the land of Hollywood, where reboots of classics that are probably better off left alone are now the bread of butter, comes another reboot of the iconic King Kong. Kong: Skull Island promised to be a fresh and new imagining of the tale, set in a slightly more modern time and disregarding the common features of the previous films.

Unsurprisingly, it failed...miserably. In fact I would go so far as to say this is the worst King Kong movie ever made. There are many reasons why this mess of a movie is a disaster, but the summary is this: it was extremely boring. To be boring is possibly the worst crime an action fantasy film can possibly commit, and Kong is absolutely guilty.

Let's explore that claim a little bit more, shall we? And for the record, in the following review I had to look up every single character because even minutes after the film ended I could not remember any of their names.

The film opens during a dog fight in World War 2 where an American and Japanese fighter pilot somehow manage to crash land (and survive!) onto Skull Island. They try to murder each other, but their fight is rather rudely interrupted by the ape himself, will he kill them? No bc Kong likes humans for some reason. Cue time jump.

It is now the 1970's, and the announcement that the USA is pulling out of Vietnam has just gone through. In a series of montages, we are introduced to the main group.
There are quite a few soldier main characters in this film, but don't worry about trying to keep them straight because they are equally interchangeable and forgettable. We know one personal detail about maybe three of them, but beyond that they are not the fleshed out individuals the film wanted to pretend they were. Samuel L Jackson plays their war obsessed and unhinged colonel, Preston Packard.

There is Bill Randa, played by John Goodman, who puts the entire expedition together to fuel his obsession with finding monsters, and his assistant? partner? Houston Brooks played by Corey Hawkins. Brooks is a scientist who wants to study geological features I guess. They have their soldiers, they have their money and brains, now they need a photographer. Cue Brie Larson. An anti-war photographer by the name of Mason Weaver who is apparently up for the cover of TIME and a Pultizer for some reason that is never explained thinks this trip is her ticket to even more fame. Finally they need a tracker to get through the jungle, because what do soldiers fresh out of Vietnam know about navigating jungles am I right? They find their tracker in James Conrad, former British Special Forces and current mercenary played by Tom Hiddleston. Oh yea there there is another scientist named San (no last name) played by Chinese actress Tian Jing.

The last important character out of this boatload is that soldier we met at the beginning, now aged 28 years into John C. Riley. He lives with the natives of the island and his Japanese companion has recently been killed by a monster.

So you have all these characters thrown together on the island where the god ape Kong protects the people from giant evil lizards. The landscape of the island is stunning and the CGI is fairly good, but I am afraid that is all I can say that is good about this movie.

The performances in this movie were extremely lacking, probably from the actors having so little to go on. Samuel L. Jackson delivered the best performance of the film as a man who is obsessed with war and killing, and is desperate to start another one now that the war in Vietnam is over. His soldiers, as previously mentioned, are completely interchangeable and  you never quite end up developing an attachment to any of them.

John Goodman's character falls flat as his scenes are limited and mainly exposition. You are supposed to see a man driven by obsession, but it was of those tell not show situations. His scientist companions do not fare much better. We know very little about them as people and only what they are there to study. In fact, Tian Jing spend most of her time in the film in the background and in silence. She had maybe three or four lines which is a real shame because she was wonderful in The Great Wall and deserved much better.

Brie Larson did alright, but her character was pretty bland. With no real depth, she was there to make some sort of emotional connection with Kong that is never really developed and to take pictures. She is compassionate, and that is her main and only character trait. Tom Hiddleston managed to give the worst performance of his career as the action hero Conrad. The character was introduced as a bad ass mercenary with loyalties to no country and no one; a man only in it for a money. We kind of saw that in his introduction scene, but the rest of the movie it was like Hiddleston forgot who he was supposed to be playing and was a even more cuddly version of his Night Manager character. The two characters form an instant bond despite their complete lack of anything in common other being exceptionally pretty people and remain unwavering loyal partners throughout the rest of the movie.

John C Riley had the most potentially interesting character, but that character was trapped in an endless cycle of exposition that he never really got out of. Delivering the only funny lines of the movie, he flip flopped between the wise man who tells everyone what is going on, and the unhinged island goof. It is a balance that is disconcerting and has no flow, and you end up feeling like they should have just gone with one or the other as they do not convincingly do both.

The film was seriously un-funny or fun, lacked heart, and took itself a little too seriously and not seriously enough at the same time. It relied too hard on gimmicks, particuarly Sam Jackson yelling his most famous lines from past movies("Hold onto your butts" being the most notable) and lengthy fight scenes to tell the story. The title character, Kong, does very little except fight other monsters, lacking the emotional depth of previous adaptations. You get the sense of what they wanted Kong to be, but in the end he is so much less than that. Also it really bugs me that he walks upright like a human. Nitpicking, I know. The fights themselves are nothing audiences have not seen before and therefore lack entertainment value. It was predictable and had no suspense, as we know Kong is coming back for a Kong vs Godzilla film in the near future. It was basically one of those crappy superhero origin stories no one really needs made solely to set up the real movie coming soon to a theater near you.

There are much better movies out there right now, and I suggest you spend your time and money on those. If you are looking for some mindless fun fantasy action, I highly recommend The Great Wall, which was about 100x more fun to watch than this mess.