Kong: Skull Island

The King of Skull Island Can't Steal the Show                    2/5

Dat Cast
     Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, Samuel Jackson, John Goodman, and John C. Reilly!

Monstrous
     This is a Monster movie not a Horror movie not an Action movie a pure Monster flick

Thematic
     While light, there are undertones questioning the nature of war and its effect on the individual

Standout
    Samuel L. Jackson steals the show in nearly every scene

Rotten Tomatoes 78%                                  Cinemascore: B+

At its best Kong: Skull Island stands right up next to its 2014 counterpart Godzilla minus the awe factor. Both feature a larger than life headline character pulled straight out of Hollywoods past, both feature one terrific standout preformance, and ultimately both suffer the same fatal flaw, the main cast and leads are bland. Tom Hiddleston is bland, Brie Larson is bland. Both sit in headline roles and contribute nothing of significance to the plot. However while this was equally the case in Godzilla, Kong: Skull Island lacks the same sense of scale due to the absence of director Gareth Edwards. Outside maybe four shots (two of which were in the trailers), Kong: Skull Island lacks any sort of bite or depth that elevates it above the standard monster flick.

Kong: Skull Islands is a period piece, featuring the expedition to the uncharted Skull Island headed by John Goodman in the early 1970s. Shortly after arriving, the military escort is ambushed by the islands king, Kong, a giant ape who can crush the military helicopters with his palm. The team is seperate and two separate groups, one headed by Hiddleston and Larson, the other by Goodman and Jackson, must reconvene in order to escape the island lost in time and save themselves in the process.

Kong's charm is its B movie premise, and its smart enough to know what it is. Unfortunately for it, Kong: Skull Island is not a B movie, its one of the biggest movies to release in its respective month. Kong pays homage fairly competently to much stronger films, such as Apocalypse Now, but is nearly complete void of basic character development and a since of tone. The one exception to this lack of development would be Jackson's character, who's arc follows that of a man seasoned by war looking down into his twilight years. Kong, when he shows up, makes for good fun but nothing that justifies the 150million$ it took to realize him making the whole expierence a resounding meh. Kong shows up in Skull Island as much as Godzilla did in his movie, but rather than delivering with a bombastic ending much of Kong's scenes have sadly been spoiled in trailers. One final note, not every monster needs to appear with a jump scare, the skull crawlers yes absolutely but every single monster on the Island, no mater how big appears out of nowhere with the familiar jump scare noise. After the seventh time or so I got sick of it.

Kong: Skull Island will be passable for many who just want a B-movie but ultimately I was disappointed. Tom Hiddleston is just as forgettable as Johnson in Godzilla, the editing is poor, the action is passible when the tinted filter isn't overwhelming the screen, The monsters are spontaneous when theres no need for it, and Kong may be the best part but only during the brief moments he's on screen. I'm disappointed by Kong: Skull Island not because its bears the same flaws as monster movies before it, but because its possesses none of the strengths.