Reboots of movie franchises that have been rebooted to death are tough. What can your reboot bring to the table that the previous reboots did not? Kong Skull Island is one such reboot. King Kong was a classic that has been redone often with mixed results. This latest take on the King Kong franchise, by Warner Bros in partnership with Legendary Pictures and Tencent Pictures, is at the very least, a fast-paced thrill ride.
I cannot claim to have seen every iteration of the Kong franchise in film, but I am more than familiar with the material.
Kong is big, really big.
One thing that other iterations of the King Kong mythos got wrong was his overall size. Kong Skull Island certainly got his size right. He is literally king. Kong is a monstrosity of enormous ape. As he should be.
What I like about this take on the story is there is no “bringing Kong to civilization and him wreaking havoc on a city”. While that was a staple of earlier King Kong movies, I am glad Kong Skull Island did not bother with this trope.
Kong is king of his island as he should be.
A king is only as good as that which he calls an enemy. Enemies Kong has on this island. According to the story, without giving too much away, there used to be a whole civilization of Kongs but something bigger took them out.
Think about that. Something bigger.
The story of Kong Skull Island is centered in the 70’s during the Vietnam War, well, the end of said war. There is a bit of time jumping going on as we see an American pilot, Hank Marlow, and a Japanese pilot, Gunpei Ikari, crash on Skull Island. Keeping with their World War II era battle lines, they continue their fight on the ground.
Their battle is quickly superseded by Kong.
This is the last we see of these two for a bit. After their battle is interrupted we fast forward to “modern day” 1970s and we get to see a bit about the main characters of Kong Skull Island.
One group is the military side of the equation, led by Samuel L. Jackson, who are tasked with breaching the newly discovered Skull Island. Tension rises early with Jackson’s men who were literally one day away from going back to their homes in the United States as the Vietnam War just ended.
The other group to pay attention to is the scientific group led by John Goodman. These guys know something that they are not telling anyone, and that information could be life changing, at least lifesaving in many cases.
There is something going afoul on Skull Island and Goodman knows it.
The expedition reaches Skull Island and begins dropping seismic charges onto the island. These explosions are used to check the soil beneath. What they find out is that most of the island is hollow ground.
Now, I cannot really comment on much of the rest of the movie as we are at about the first twenty-five percent or so.
The rest of Kong Skull Island is almost non-stop action as things go awry for the expedition. Really awry.
There are some jump scares as well as some grisly deaths. If you are squeamish then you may want to re-evaluate your viewing choice here. The death scenes are not particularly bloody, they are more gruesome in nature than blood and guts gore.
Please skip this part if you are not wanting to read spoilers.
One member of the scientific expedition is particularly interested in the “hollow Earth” theory. Goodman’s character believes in it as well because that is part of the reason for the expedition going to Skull Island.
Throughout Kong Skull Island you get the feeling that there is more to this story than is being told in this one movie. That is true. You will have to watch the end credits to get the breadth of just how big this story is.
The end credits are the cherry on top.
We are more interested in the second end credits sequence here. The one that deals with Monarch. It seems that Kong is just the first movie in a cinematic universe that will also eventually encompass Godzilla and his enemies (something King Kong in the past was part of). This apparently is a “giants that ruled the Earth” cinematic universe that Kong Skull Island belongs to.
I am fine with that and look forward to seeing how these movies all fit together. Godzilla is a popular movie franchise, and one that has been rebooted nearly as many times as King Kong over the last century.
Youi are not going to be quoting lines from Kong Skull Island like you would Shakespeare but at least they didn’t screw this up like Michael Bay did Transformers.
If you want to catch Kong Skull Island, then check eBay or Amazon for a copy. I viewed it via a seven-day free trial of HBO.