Harry Situation Reviews: Kong: Skull Island

The king has returned! No Harambe references in this review!

Kong: Skull Island is Warner Bros. & Legendary Studios new film part of their established Monster Cinematic Universe, which will help set of for the upcoming King Kong Vs Godzilla movie. Set in 1973 during the Vietnam War, the story unfolds when a group of researchers and soldiers set out to explore an uncharted island out in the Pacific. Once there they learn first hand of the dominate species that has made its island home, the legendary Kong. Now stranded they learn that there are more ferocious predators than a 100-foot tall gorilla on the island, such as giant reptilian monsters known as the Skullcrawlers. Can they make it off alive in time for the sequel? Will there be a sequel?

I’m definitely a fan of King Kong. I’ve enjoyed both the original and the Peter Jackson film. One thing to note is that Kong: Skull Island is not a direct reboot of the original 1933 classic, but more of its own original story. So no worries, folks. But how does it honestly hold up? 

First let’s get the positives out of the way. The big one is in fact the special effects. The effects for some of the landscape and giant monsters looks great, especially Kong. If you were disappointed of not seeing enough Godzilla in the 2014 American film, don’t worry you’ll see plenty of Kong throughout this film. When the monsters duke it out it looks pretty stunning. Also gotta give props to the sound designers for making sure every monster has their own distinct sound. 

And I also enjoyed listening to the soundtrack. Nice listening to classic rock from that time era. I would definitely buy it and listen to it over and over in my car.

Speaking of giants, the casting is just as gigantic as the monsters. We have Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, John Goodman, Toby Kebbell, John C. Reilly, and Samuel L. Jackson in the spotlight. Basically we have Loki, Captain Marvel, Sully from Monsters Inc., Durotan from Warcraft, Dewey Cox, and Mace Windu facing off against King Kong. That’s fucking awesome! How do they all hold up? They all deliver fine performances, but then it comes to the biggest problem of the film: I didn’t care about any of the characters. 

This is the same problem I had with Rogue One. There isn’t enough character development for anyone to give a shit. You just look at them all and think to yourself they’re just going to get eaten. So why should I care about any of them? The only exception was Samuel L. Jackson’s character. His character has a vendetta against Kong after he kills his men during the helicopter flight to the island and he sort of becomes Captain Ahab in the film so that was interesting.

The editing is also a big problem. I get the feeling that the director did only indie films and sense that he’s not used to directing big blockbuster movies. The editing is such a hazard that they jump cut to something different every time like the movie’s got ADHD. Seriously there’ll be a moment where we got one group of survivors on screen for one minute and then the next its another group of survivors. 

And oh man the humor nearly killed this film. It’s good when a movie has some humorous moments but only when its intentional and actually funny. I rarely laughed at all at the jokes in this entire movie. It was flat, it wasn’t funny, it was just dull!

Kong: Skull Island was, sadly, underwhelming for me. I really enjoyed the 2014 Godzilla film so much that I was hoping this film could meet it’s standards in entertainment. Unfortunately, the film didn’t leave much of an impact as I wanted. There’s still some stuff to enjoy if you can get past the flaws. Apparently there’s a post-credit scene at the end but I didn’t stick around for that. Maybe you’ll find it enjoying more than I did, but I think they could have done a little better.

                                Positives:                               Negatives:

                               -Monsters & effects               -Bland characters

                               -Monster brawls                    -Editing

                               -Soundtrack                          -Flat humor

                               -Fine performances

Final Grade: C

Kind of a weak addition to the MonsterVerse but hopefully Godzilla: King of Monsters will make up for it in 2019. So there’s my thoughts of Kong: Skull Island. Have you seen this movie yet? What were your thoughts? What’s your favorite moment of King Kong in any of the King Kong movies? Please be kind, leave a like and comment below, and check back again for more Harry Situation Reviews!

Best Quote:

Lt. Colonel Packard: “It’s time to show Kong that man is king.”

#harrysituationreviews #film #opinion #KingKong #monster #kaiju #Monsterverse #action