King Kong is an incredibly iconic movie monster, so much so that he has been a part of at least 20 movies throughout the years since his creation in 1933. Some are instant classics like the original 1933 film and to some extent the 2005 film directed by Peter Jackson, while others not as much so like the 1976 film starring Jessica Lange and King Kong Lives in 1986, but it stands that there’s been plenty of remakes of the original film, to the point where it wouldn’t be too interesting if any creative did the exact same thing again. This was the question posed towards Legendary Pictures when it was revealed in 2017 that there was going to be another King Kong movie coming out in the same universe set up within the 2014 Godzilla film. From the trailers, it looked like it was going to stray away from the original Merian C. Cooper creation (keeping the basic format the same, but updating elements enough to change it up), have more of an action-oriented vibe as opposed to being slower, personal and tragic, and serve as a beginning point for the titular King of the Apes to work up to a movie where he clashes with Godzilla to see who the strongest movie monster truly is. All of this feels like a decent idea and seems like it would lead in a good direction, but upon seeing how this movie handles itself, it reaches a point where his anime-influenced TV show in the late 60s sounds more appealing. Set during the late 1970s and at the tail end of the Vietnam War, head of the U.S government organisation Monarch, Bill Randa (played by John Goodman) wishes to travel to the recently discovered Skull Island in order to find other monstrous creatures. He recruits a U.S army unit commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Preston Packard (played by Samuel L. Jackson), former British Special Air Service captain James Conrad (played by Tom Hiddleston) and anti-war photographer Mason Weaver (played by Brie Larson), to take part in this trip, and upon arriving, they discover more than they anticipated. Being an island that seems to have been forgotten by time with multiple carnivorous monsters that feel prehistoric in nature battling against the king of the apes himself, King Kong, it proves to be a hunting ground in every meaning of the word, as a good chunk of the infantry are destroyed by Kong and the team is scattered. Stuck on an island of death and even coming across World War II pilot Hank Marlow (played by John C Reilly) who has been stuck on the island for years, the group have to find a way off the island before the Colonel Packard, who has gone mad after the death of his crew, decides to destroy Kong and unwittingly unleashes the real monsters hidden underneath. As opposed to the 2014 Godzilla film that resulted in a flawed but competent movie that housed a dramatic scale and threat, this movie is anything but consistent, anything but intelligent and above all else, anything but adult. Though reviewed favorably and earning a strong box office, Kong: Skull Island is a loud, mindless picture that fails to entertain within its puerile mindset and substitutes characters, writing and themes for explosions, an obnoxious hard-core attitude and mostly hollow spectacle.

With this being only the second film to be directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts (with his first film, the 2013 independent coming-of-age drama, The Kings of Summer, having an entire different feel to this movie), it already presents the notion that this is ship is not being commandeered by someone with experience, but it doesn’t entire feel like he’s at fault with the end results. The movie feels like it isn’t set-up to really work as its own film with its own layout, story development, characters, or conclusion, but instead, a movie that only exists to set up a future even within the universe that Legendary is setting up for themselves. Because of this mindset and the fact that it already trying so hard to differentiate itself from the grimmer and bleaker atmosphere of the Godzilla films, it’s hard to determine whether this was the fault of the director or if he was just tasked with catering towards the demands of a studio and a script that didn’t support what he is good at. To his credit, it feels that the actors seem to be handled fine and the pace isn’t annoyingly awkward, so it feels like this is more of an issue with the script and the presentation, especially with how inconsistent the tone is. This movie feels like it wants to be a crazy action flick unlike most of the other adaptations, with more extravagant set pieces, larger scale fight scenes, and a highly saturated visual palette and tone that feels more chaotic than sensible. Since the previous films were more character-driven, this wouldn’t be a bad switch as the character of Kong could be suited in something more thrill-inducing, but what’s wrong with the portrayal is that it isn’t presented like a comic book movie, a more standard action film, or even something like a B-movie, this is showcased like an action film Michael Bay would present. What that means is that it is overly artsy, rapidly edited, constantly moving, horribly pandering, and incredibly hard to witness, whether it’s about the action scenes or just the movie in general. The majority of the movie feels like it has no feeling of subtly or patience, no sense of complex characters or morals, something that feels like its afraid of losing your attention if it doesn’t have their bland characters saying a stupid line all the time, and one that pretends that the more action shown, the more interesting it will be. While the actual outline for the narrative written by John Gatins isn’t actually too bad, the script itself written by Dan Gilroy, Max Borenstein and Derek Connolly is really lame. What could’ve been interesting commentary on the overly aggressive nature of the Vietnam War (which is what the film feels like it’s trying to present somewhat) instead come across as cartoons stating the fact that ‘’AMERICANA is BAD’’, and what could be at least a crazy over-the-top B-movie is too obsessed with pretending its ‘’saying something’’ to really allow the audience to enjoy watching the absurdity of the situation. This results in it not working on either angle.

What else holds the film back from reaching enjoyable B-movie territory is the acting. While it’s nothing special and it doesn’t save how light and barren these roles are overall, the actors themselves are giving exactly what they are required to do. That is to say, they follow along with these one-dimensional characters that are more often than not only here to be eaten and sometimes not even that. The movie is strangely overstuffed with characters especially when it reaches its end and when your movie has over twelve characters of focus, and only five of them do anything of worth, maybe it’s best to cut back on a few of them. It also doesn’t help that even when the characters of focus are highlighted, they aren’t very good. Samuel L Jackson as the obvious villain who just wants war to continue for no good reason feels so cartoonishly basic that he’s a pain to be around, John C Reilly as the marooned man on the isolated island is only around for stupid comic relief and forceful plot exposition, the military people like Toby Kebbell, Shea Whigham and Jason Mitchell are portrayed as completely incompetent, and all the scientist who are infatuated by the monsters like Jing Tian and Corey Hawkins are given so little screentime, you forget they’re even there. Even Kong isn’t that interesting as he barely feels like a defined role, instead just a personality-less killing creature who is used to produce cool large-scale fight scenes. Outside of all the stock characters, the only two come out of it passably are the leads, with both Tom Hiddleston and Brie Larson at least coming across like they want their roles to be a bit better than just the bare minimum. While they still aren’t given much outside of the opening act, there is at least a hint of an idea for their roles and the acting from the both of them is effective enough so that they are the only two you don’t want to see die. Human characters aren’t really monster movies’ forte, but if they are going to be given focus, they have to be watchable.

The movie feels like it wants to overcompensate for a lot of things that the 2104 Godzilla movie got wrong. Instead of focusing too much on the people, too much screen time is given to Kong, instead of being grey and pretty smokey, the movie is over-saturated in bright colors to the point where it becomes distracting, and instead of featuring next to no action in the movie until the last act, this movie features too much action to the point where it just becomes boring and samey after a while. While the set-pieces aren’t bad on their own and there is a nice sense of looming scale to anytime Kong is on screen, the overuse of them mixed with the bland characters and inconsistent CG makes them not as impressive as they could be.  Kong himself can have moments where he looks legitimately massive and imposing and is part of some fantastic shots (most used for the trailers), but when he’s seen so much, not only does it start to become more fake-looking, but it also shows how much he doesn’t act like an ape, but rather a mo-capped person pretending to be one. Being motioned-captured by Toby Kebbell and Terry Notary, his expressions, movements and even actions all feel distinctly human and not very animalistic. The camera work by Larry Fong can also be overly obnoxious at moments, not so much in the choice of angles and framing, but rather how it feels like it is trying to be off-the-walls and crazy as opposed to just choosing what the correct shot should be. The movie operates a lot like that in terms of its visuals and music as well, as instead of doing what would create an interesting scene, it wants to go overboard to be weird and dramatic to the point where it’s just annoying. Seeing the destruction of the island being a metaphor for armies destroying native landscapes isn’t quite as subtle as you think with shots of men grinning with explosions in their eyes, it’s that level of on-the-nose.

The fact that Kong: Skull Island doesn’t even go the effort of putting the full name of the titular monster in the title, goes to show just how much quality material is going to be connected with this mess of a movie. When it’s not bland and in-your-face, its mindless boring action with less-than-subtle visuals. When their idea of culture is just showing a native village existing without speaking a word, that’s about as complex as this movie gets. The movie probably wouldn’t have been as painful as it was if it just chose to pick one of its two sides; it could have gone all-the-way and made an off-the-walls B-movie with extreme action and extreme characters, but the competency of the acting and potential stability that could come from the plot outline holds it back, or it could have just been a straight-forward movie with interesting characters, effective commentary, and reserved action, but clearly that isn’t something writers are great at. If you’re looking for a mindless action movie with no sense of intelligence or depth, this will work fine but there’s plenty of other versions of Kong that feel much more worth your time.

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