Kong: Skull Island

While the filmmakers love for the material is obvious, the recent interpretations of King Kong (Peter Jackson's 2005 film) and Godzilla (the recent 2014 release) may have been too reverent towards the source material. Jackson's version of Kong extended nearly every element of the original film with expansive CGI segments while Godzilla decided to keep the title character off-screen for most of the movie. Thankfully, the folks behind Kong: Skull Island had a novel approach: forge your own path.

As the Vietnam war comes to a close, a secret government group called Monarch (they're the group Ken Watanabe was a part of in Godzilla) is on its last financial legs. Eager to make a discovery, they use Cold War sympathies to get a military escort to Skull Island under the auspices of conducting geological experiments. However, the team's aggressive testing methods put them on a collision course with Kong, a gigantic ape/protector of the island and its creatures. Now scattered and eager to reach their rendezvous point, the soldiers and scientists will have to face all manner of beasts, including creatures more dangerous than Kong, to leave the island alive.

As I indicated above, the main appeal of Skull Island lies less with the natural appeal of a movie with giant monster fighting, because what else are you going to have in a movie like this, but more about the noteworthy differences in tone, action sequences, and setting. So let's break down what makes Skull Island pop.

The Tone: Shameless Silly Spectacle

There's a fine line between a movie that's taking itself too seriously and a movie that's taking so much piss out of itself it's hard to enjoy. For instance, I'm trying to remember a single effective joke in Peter Jackson's King Kong while remembering how many movies today almost apologize for being action-adventure romps.

But Skull Island manages this balance exceptionally well, delivering just enough stakes and exposition to keep the audience's attention while still delivering enough thrilling set pieces and jokes to keep things fun and light. It's not a deep movie, but it's not trying to be.

The Setting: Works Unexpectedly Well

Putting this movie in 1973 seems like an odd choice at first, but as the film progresses it actually feels like a progressively smarter decision. It explains limits to the military tech or rather why no one has been able to fly to this island yet and why their communication methods are limited. It works metaphorically as a connection to the Vietnam War since they're fighting for their lives in a jungle they don't know, and pulls a nice number of visual cues from Vietnam war movies like Apocalypse Now. It's also not as limited as the Depression Era tech of the original film.

The Characters: Stock But Effective With A Couple of Home Run Hitters

The acting is great all around with everyone doing what they're being asked to do. Tom Hiddleston and Brie Larson are our moral compass characters (the mercenary with a heart of gold and photojournalist obsessed with protecting the innocent), John Goodman is a solid exposition machine, and all of the soldier and scientist roles make their roles and personalities clear even if you can't remember their names. But the ends of this movie's spectrum are absolutely owned by Samuel L Jackson and John C. Reilly.

Jackson's military man who clearly is using a fight against Kong as a mean to exorcise his denied victory in Vietnam is the perfect kind of speechifying yelly role that Jackson does so well. From the first second he's on screen we can already tell that he's a couple of bad moments from snapping so the movie plays out like a slow motion car wreck as we watch turn progressively more mad with vengeance.

But my MVP trophy goes to John C. Reilly who steals every single scene he's in as a WWII pilot that's been on the island for almost 30 years. The movie asks a lot of him since he delivers most of the jokes, a ton of exposition, and the one knowledgeable voice in the pack, and he delivers every single time. He's so good that you can often feel the movie deflate slightly when he's not onscreen.

The Action: Monsters Galore and Some New Moves For Kong

Granted all of this fun stuff doesn't work at all if you can't deliver the giant monster fun. Much to my delight, Kong: Skull Island has a wide variety to offer. We have Kong facing off against helicopters, Kong fighting small monsters, the humans fending off small monsters in furious firefights, and of course a giant throwdown for the finale. The two things that make these sequences stand out are the speed and the new moves for Kong.

While a lot of monster movies make their heroic monsters lumbering beats that throw slow moving hay-makers (a la Pacific Rim) Skull Island's monsters are quick and agile. To give you an idea of the pace, there's a phenomenal intro sequence where Kong jumps around the island basically tearing the top off of mountains that was way more entertaining that it deserved to be. As such the battles feel a little grittier more like a fist fight than a military engagement.

This version of Kong digs into his primate roots and uses tools ranging from trees to boat debris to gain the upper hand against his opponents. Do these new weapons get silly intros where Kong contemplates their usefulness or introduces them like a martial arts movie star? Of course they do! And it's great.