In the early ‘70s, Bill Randa (John Goodman), the only survivor of a ship destroyed years ago by a giant monster, is obsessed with finding giant monsters in the world. As his last chance, he puts together a team that includes ex-S.A.S tracker James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston), photographer Mason Weaver (Brie Larson), and a military contingent on their way home from Vietnam, lead by Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson), to explore a storm covered, hidden island. Once there, things go south quickly, as they run into King Kong, and then a series of monsters before learning what is going on from Hank Marlow (John C. Reilly) who has been marooned on Skull Island since WWII.
If you are going to remake or reboot or re-whatever a film, then don’t do the exact same thing that was done before. The producers took that to heart. Unlike Jackson’s beautiful copy of the 1933 original and De Laurentis’s pathetic one, Kong: Skull Island is something else. It has nods to the previous versions, and enough familiar characteristics in the big ape to know we’re still talking about Kong (he does like tiny women), but this is a new story with different themes, different characters, and a different feel. If what you want is the same old King Kong, you will be disappointed.
So unlike earlier Kong films, this is full out action and adventure and only action and adventure, with an accent on the action. Nothing is settled by love or loneliness. Running, shooting, or if you happen to be a giant monster, biting and slapping are the only ways to express anything. And for a giant monster movie, that’s a plus. It’s two hours long and feels half that.
So Skull Island is all about excitement, but that doesn’t mean it is themeless. Environmentalism—particularly the negative effect humans have on the world, and the political arrogance and pointless anger that is the cause of wars are front and center. Randa’s comment that there will never be a time when Washington is so messed up got a solid laugh. The themes aren’t subtle, but I don’t think you want subtlety in a movie about a giant ape smashing giant lizards.
I couldn’t ask more from the special effects. The entire menagerie of monsters and critters are both “real” and cool. Nothing is hidden by darkness and fog. You want to see Kong? You’re going to see Kong, and he looks good. He also doesn’t quite look like a gorilla, but some other ape that stands fully erect, which makes for some powerful images.
And even better than the FX are the actors, which shouldn’t be surprising. When has Goodman or Jackson been anything else but good. Hiddleston is one of the three best male leads of this generation (I’ll leave you to guess at the others) and does an amazing job of bringing life to a fairly routine character. Brie Larson adds a bit of emotion and all of the secondary players nail their parts. I’ve complained with other recent ensembles that I didn’t know who was who. Not a problem here. Once the initial trimming was completed, I knew who everyone was and what it meant when they were in danger. With all that good work, there was a standout, and not the one I expected: John C. Reilly. He could easily have ended up being the unimportant comedy relief, but instead he’s the heart of the picture. He’s the one I cared about.
Strangely, all that fine ensemble work is also the film’s largest flaw. There’s no real focus. This could easily have been James Conrad’s story, or Mason Weaver’s, and it should have been. Instead it isn’t anyone’s story, including Kong’s. Once the wheels are set in motion, there is no protagonist. People—and giant apes—simply react. Packard comes closest to actually doing something and his choices are the least entertaining of the movie. I’d have liked to know a few of the players less well and gotten deeper into Conrad’s life and goals. Without that, the film is good, but it is also all surface.
You might figure a daikaiju action flick is best suited for fourteen-year-old boys, but this film was made for an older crowd. If you haven’t seen Apocalypse Now, a lot of Kong: Skull Island is going to go over your head (the filmmakers really, really liked Apocalypse now). Similarly, what weight there is to the film is only going to be felt by those who lived through the 1970s. For the younger set, they’ve got lots of monster violence, which I suppose is enough.
Note: Stay for the after credits scene. It is annoying to have to sit through around seven minutes of scrolling names (Marvel normally knows to put theirs in the far less aggravating mid-credits), but the after credits sequence does make a difference to the franchise. Kong: Skull Islandis part of the Monsterverse connected universe that includes Godzilla (2014), and the upcoming Godzilla King of the Monsters and King Kong Verses Godzilla, and it is in this film that the world is laid out (so if things didn’t make sense in Godzilla—and they didn’t—this helps…a little).