Kong: Skull Island – SPOILER-FREE Review
Directed by: Jordan Vogt-Roberts
Starring: Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, Brie Larson, John Goodman, John C. Reilly
Runtime: 118 min
Jordan Vogt-Roberts brings us another take on the classic about the mythical creature Kong. This time, a team of explorers goes on an expedition into an isolated island, where many planes fall and boats sink.
Unaware of the dangers that the island possesses, James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston) leads the team into the jungle with the help of the military, composed by Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson), a photographer named Mason Weaver (Brie Larson) and the two men that found the island, Bill Randa (John Goodman) and Houston Brooks (Corey Hawkins).
This is the second movie of the already confirmed “Monster-verse”, which has Godzilla as the first film (so we can probably have a Kong v Godzilla in a near future …) which I actually enjoyed. Kong: Skull Island however … Well, let me point the good stuff first.
The monsters are amazing, not only Kong, but the creatures of this island are beautiful to look at. The fights between Kong and the other monsters are thrilling, extremely well-shot and super entertaining. The detail that goes into those scenes are incredible and I’m sure I’ll rewatch them as soon as I can.
However, that’s about the only good stuff about the film. The amazing visual quality that portrays the creatures doesn’t really show in the rest of the runtime. There are scenes which have a surprisingly horrible and OBVIOUS green-screen and that affected me throughout the film because it wasn’t just a single mistake … There are a bunch of them.
The real problem is the characters. I can’t believe that they were able to screw that up with such a top-level cast. Everyone is bland, with no character development whatsoever and they’re just there so Kong can play with them and eventually kill them. With the exceptions of Samuel L. Jackson‘s and John. C. Reilly‘s characters, I didn’t care for any of the protagonists. Each character has ONE scene (and I’m being generous) to tell us why should we care about them and, even if one or two are able to have it, it’s not enough.
The script is lazy and just bad. The exposition scenes are constant and even then, the writing doesn’t help. With a story with such a simple and good premise plus some interesting sub-plots during the second act, the screenplay ruined the whole thing and what could’ve been a great movie easily became a … Meh.
Kong: Skull Island is packed with amazing monsters’ fights, a beautiful CGI Kong and well-shot action scenes. However, the bland characters, the lazy script, full of exposition scenes and a surprisingly amount of just bad green-screen throughout the whole film drags what could’ve been a great blockbuster and turned it into a disappointment.
Rating: C
PS: in case you haven’t noticed it, I’ve changed my ranking system. You can see it on the right side of my blog, below the “Search” bar and above the social links.
