Kong Skull Island is an action/monster film which comes directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts and stars Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, Brie Larson, John C. Reilly and John Goodman. If you’ve ever heard of King Kong before or seen the classic film or any of the many remakes, you may know what to expect from this one. Basically it’s about a team which travels to an isolated island which has its own massive jungle and a giant Gorilla who is the King of it all. The only thing though, he’s not the only massive monster on the island, there’s plenty of others there as well which are almost just as dangerous as Kong is.
I’ve always been a bit of a fan of these sort of monster movies and have enjoyed many King Kong films in the past as well as anything that’s got Godzilla in it. Sure these movies aren’t really masterpieces, but for some reason seeing a big monster smash some stuff at the cinema is always a lot of fun. If this is all you’re looking for when going in to see Kong Skull Island at the cinema this week, then you’ll surely have a good time with it.
The action scenes aren’t too bad. But as the film does have quite a few monsters we see attack our human visitors to the island, much of the action is done with cgi. Which is both great and not so great depending on your tastes and tolerance for it. The animations for Kong are very well done and so too are animations for the main enemy/monster in the film as well. Some of the other monsters, while good as well are sort of just okay though. You’ll get to see lots of explosions, gun fights, slashing and people’s limbs get ripped apart and also a few monsters too. It’s all in good fun.
The plot is okay. I’m not sure what to expect from a monster movie. But we see the team travel to the island and they’re all American. They’ve got helicopters, guns and a lot of firepower, but once they get into the jungle, their technology just doesn’t deal with the environment very well. It’s not long before Kong shows up and smashes their helicopters and sends them down to the ground where they’ll have to survive there amongst everything else that’s on that island. The team then have to try survive long enough so they can get off the island and back home. It’s all okay, the plot seems to be set up for monster fights, gun battles and Kong scenes on the island. The dialogue is a problem though, for some reason it’s just so cheesy.
The actors and actresses we get in Kong Skull Island which make up the cast are all great though. The film includes people such as Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, Brie Larson, John C. Reilly and John Goodman and they all have some entertainment value during the film. I never really felt bored with any of these actors. However there are a few other cast members there which don’t seem to make any impact. It’s an issue I feel as there was some waste there and the amount of characters is quite large as well. But I guess there is a need to kill people off when the monsters come, but still, it would have been nice to have a bit more there.
Kong Skull Island is an interesting film to see and it does have some strong themes in there. As you may have been able to tell from watching the trailer, there’s a strong Vietnam war theme in this film. As you watch it though, there’s a lot of Vietnam war undertones there and I’m not sure what the filmmakers were trying to get at with it, or if they just thought the period works for a King Kong movie. It does work well enough, but I’d be interested to hear some people’s thoughts on it after watching the movie this week.
Overall I quite enjoyed Kong Skull Island. I love the film’s cast members which includes Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, Brie Larson, John C. Reilly and John Goodman. The action scenes and special effects on the monsters are entertaining and that was all I was really looking for out of this film. The story is okay, but seems to be just there to set up the action scenes, with no real great characters. But the film has some interesting themes and the the Vietnam war tone was an interesting course to take for a King Kong film. If you love these types of monster movies, then it might be a bit of fun for you to see Kong Skull Island this weekend.
P.S. There is a post credit scene at the end, so please stay in your seat. I can assure you that it will be worth it.
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