Take an uncharted island surrounded by electrical storms, add in a great big, friendly (well kind of) monster, a few more not so friendly monsters, men who love their guns, a damsel in distress (sort of), an unusually buff Tom Hiddleston, and a seriously deranged Samuel L. Jackson for good measure, and you get Kong: Skull Island, the latest monster movie released by Warner Bros Productions.
Kong is director Jordan Vogt-Roberts’s first venture into the genre. His name was previously connected with the much loved, indie favorite ‘The Kings of Summer‘. It is also the first time he’s worked on such a big budget film, and it looks like he’s put the money to some good use. This film has some dramatic action-packed battles, stunning visuals, amazing backdrops and a world that you would get lost in, though you really might not want to.
The plot of the film is fairly simple. A group called Monarch headed by Bill Randa (Goodman) mounts a government-backed expedition to the ominously named Skull Island that is perpetually surrounded by a storm. The team is led by Colonel Packard (a disgruntled Samuel L. Jackson) who hasn’t exactly reconciled himself to the fact that the Vietnam war was abandoned, not won. He’s itching for a fight, and after Kong rips most of his people to shreds as a rebuttal for, well bombing his home, the colonel’s got a formidable fight on his hands.
Hiddleston dons the robes of a former soldier turned tracker-for-hire named Conrad for this film, a role he fills quite convincingly. Along for the ride are a team of scientists, the remaining members of the colonel’s slightly less motivated team, and a wartime photojournalist named Weaver played by Brie Larson. The film has two main baddies and surprise, surprise, Kong isn’t really one of them. After the initial encounter with Kong leaves the team stranded and scattered across the island, the story follows their attempts at uniting and getting off the island hopefully, alive.
The tone of the movie is surprisingly playful at times, given the intensity of the plot and the predicament of the characters. The main comic relief is brought in by John C. Reilly who plays Hank Marlow, the American WW2 fighter who informs his would-be rescuers that they’re not going to make it off Skull Island alive. Make no mistake though, Kong is the star of the film. Kong is King. He fills his role well, surveying his domain, looking after his unique subjects. It’s impossible to not empathise with Kong through the course of the film, especially once we learn about his lineage and that he protects the island’s primitive human inhabitants from the devil that lives below, dubbed ‘Skullcrawlers’ by Reilly.
If you’ve come into the film to get a good dose of monsters, have no fear the island is home to some ugly-ass monsters. Once you accept the freaky giant eight-legged spider, throw in a tree-sized stick insect, and a water buffalo the size of a home for good measure, you’ll get a fair idea of the kind of inhabitants that reside on the island. In comparison to the others, Kong could almost pass as a cuddly monkey who seems to enjoy a serving of calamari, granted he prefers his meals to be really fresh. Sure there’s a colony of mute worshippers of Kong who reside on the island, but they don’t serve any real purpose apart from providing our heroes a place to rest for a while.
Like any monster movie, the human cast on the island has been divided into disposable and slightly less disposable slots. And while you almost know who’s going to make it to the end of the film, there are a few surprises along the way. The film is well paced and contains some hidden, and not so hidden messages that viewers are meant to take with them after the credits roll. There’s the obvious question of where Man stands in the pecking order, along with the effects of war. Be sure to sit for a post credit scene for a peek into what’s to come. Kong: Skull Island is the second instalment in what has been dubbed the ‘Legendary Monster Verse’, which in the future will involve a showdown between the top contenders in Monsterville.
The series kicked off with Godzilla in 2014 and fans can expect the next entry, Godzilla: King of Monsters, in 2019. While you wait, maybe check out the trailer for Kong here and then go see it in cinemas now!