Kong: Skull Island

Director: Jordan Vogt-Roberts
Screenplay: Dan Gilroy and Max Borenstein and Derek Connolly (story by John Gatins)
Stars: Tom Hiddleston (James Conrad), Samuel L. Jackson (Preston Packard), Brie Larson (Mason Weaver), John C. Reilly (Hank Marlow), John Goodman (Bill Randa), Corey Hawkins (Houston Brooks), John Ortiz (Victor Nieves), Tian Jing (San), Toby Kebbell (Jack Chapman / Kong), Jason Mitchell (Mills), Shea Whigham (Cole), Thomas Mann (Slivko), Eugene Cordero (Reles), Marc Evan Jackson (Landsat Steve), Will Brittain (Young Marlow / Marlow’s Son), Miyavi (Gunpei Ikari)
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Year of Release: 2017
Country: U.S.
Kong: Skull Island
Kong: Skull Island

Kong: Skull Island, the third remake/reboot of Meriam C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack’s 1933 classic King Kong, suffers from a lack of discernible personality. The great critic Pauline Kael rightly described Kong, the giant ape who is discovered on a remote island and subsequently exploited by humankind, as “the greatest misfit in movie history.” Of course, she was referring to the much derided 1976 remake directed by disaster specialist John Guillermin (The Towering Inferno and produced by the extravagant Italian superproducer Dino De Laurentiis (Barbarella, Dune), but even that campy debacle featured a marauding simian with personality and heart. The same could be said for Peter Jackson’s 2005 version, in which The Lord of the Rings auteur turned the relatively simple story into an epic about misunderstood love and human cruelty. Kong: Skull Island, on the other hand, isn’t really about anything except rampaging monsters, of which it has plenty and little else.

The story is set in 1973 for no discernible reason other than it being a good excuse to take advantage of the fantastic rock music being produced at the time by the likes of Creedence Clearwater Revival, Black Sabbath, and Jefferson Airplane. Bill Randa (John Goodman), a scientist who specializes in strange phenomena (and is therefore derided by most as a “crackpot”), convinces the government to fund an exploration of a hitherto undiscovered island seen for the first time via satellite imagery. He and his partner, Houston Brooks (Corey Hawkins), hire a seasoned tracker named James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston) and allow a photojournalist named Mason Weaver (Brie Larson) to tag along on the expedition. They are piloted and guarded by a military envoy just out of Vietnam headed by Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson), who is clearly not ready to leave the war zone yet. Early on they run into Kong, who in this version is so large he looks like he could stomp on the Empire State Building rather than climb it (in size he takes after the exaggerated enormity of the Japanese Kong rip-offs from the ’60s). Kong attacks the military envoy, knocking all the choppers out of the air and killing most everyone except a dozen or so people who are scattered all over the island and must make their way to the rendezvous point in just two days.

However, Kong is actually the least of their worries, if not their benefactor. The real danger on the island is an underground-dwelling species of giant lizard creatures who have skull-like faces and empty eye sockets that make them look not unlike particularly horrific versions of the “Spy vs. Spy” characters in Mad magazine. The survivors learn about these vicious inhabitants from Hank Marlow (John C. Reilly), a World War II pilot who was shot down over the island and has lived there ever since with its native people, who in this version look Polynesian, rather than African, and are fundamentally peaceful, rather than violent; screenwriters Dan Gilroy (Nightcrawler), Max Borenstein (Godzilla), and Derek Connolly (Jurassic World), working from a story by John Gatins (Real Steel), clearly took note of the charges of racism that have dogged all previous versions of the Kong story. Marlow helpfully explains that Kong is really a protector, the one creature on the island who can take on the giant lizards, although that doesn’t stop Packard from wanting to kill him anyway to avenge the deaths of his men.

Thus, Kong: Skull Island is a long, drawn-out chase film, with the constantly dwindling number of survivors trying to figure out how to traverse the island alive. Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts, who has worked primarily in television and has the indie Sundance hit The Kings of Summer (2013) to his credit, puts together a few nifty sequences, including one set in a Kong graveyard where the characters must duck and hide in and around the bones of Kong’s relatives to avoid the giant lizards and one involving a gargantuan spider whose legs are mistaken for bamboo trees (until one skewers a poor victim through the mouth). He also shows a gift for memorable composition, often bringing the film to a near stand-still so we can admire some impressive slow-motion or static imagery (Kong’s enormous face rising out of the flames, Huey helicopters silhouetted against the setting sun). But, as a whole, the film primarily feels repetitious, rather than thrilling or awe-inspiring, with the same basic threats reworked over and over again to dwindling effect. It doesn’t help that none of the characters are particularly remarkable, despite the cast being loaded with talented character actors like Tom Hiddleston, John Goodman, and Brie Larson, who won the Best Actress Oscar last year for Room (2015). John C. Reilly is the only one who makes a real impression, but then again he’s the only actor who gets an interesting character to play. Reilly is both goofy and a bit poignant as the downed pilot who has spent 28 years on Skull Island. He brings flashes of life to the film, albeit not enough to cover over how fundamentally uninspired and redundant it is and how it has sapped its simian protagonist of any genuine personality or interest.

Copyright © 2017 James Kendrick

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Overall Rating: (2)




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