Kong Skull Island early reception?

I found this movie to be rather mediocre, mostly I fell strongly detached from characters that acted... inhuman.
Yup giant ape just killed most of our guys... nobody is surprised, seriously, no one talks about it. They are like, okay, let's regroup.
And when they leave island everybody is sentimental, almost nostalgic "we won't tell anybody about what happened here" ...why? You lost your friends here, this island tried to kill you in dozen different ways and yet you act like it was some amazing experience.
And nobody is reasonable there. We have military guy who has his Moby Dick moment, and on the other hand we have people that just discovered that earth is empty inside, giant monsters live there and the sole defender of humanity is giant ape that cannot reproduce cause it is the last of its kind...yeah , let's not tell anybody about this very important fact, let's not build any defences... you want kanjiu? Cause that is how you get kanjiu. Let's not even talk about character interactions because... that would be painfull.
On the other hand visually it is stunning, monsters are awesome and kong is...well kong. Nice movie to watch as long as you do not think about it.
And my final pet peeve ... Monster is getting smashed by heavy caliber mounted machine gun- ignores it, but flare gun...oh flare gun is a problem. I just wonder...did director saw how big those shells are? What happens to an armor truck that is attacked with this kind of firepower?

I found this movie to be rather mediocre, mostly I fell strongly detached from characters that acted... inhuman.
Yup giant ape just killed most of our guys... nobody is surprised, seriously, no one talks about it. They are like, okay, let's regroup.
And when they leave island everybody is sentimental, almost nostalgic "we won't tell anybody about what happened here" ...why? You lost your friends here, this island tried to kill you in dozen different ways and yet you act like it was some amazing experience.
And nobody is reasonable there. We have military guy who has his Moby Dick moment, and on the other hand we have people that just discovered that earth is empty inside, giant monsters live there and the sole defender of humanity is giant ape that cannot reproduce cause it is the last of its kind...yeah , let's not tell anybody about this very important fact, let's not build any defences... you want kanjiu? Cause that is how you get kanjiu. Let's not even talk about character interactions because... that would be painfull.
On the other hand visually it is stunning, monsters are awesome and kong is...well kong. Nice movie to watch as long as you do not think about it.
And my final pet peeve ... Monster is getting smashed by heavy caliber mounted machine gun- ignores it, but flare gun...oh flare gun is a problem. I just wonder...did director saw how big those shells are? What happens to an armor truck that is attacked with this kind of firepower?

It's interesting that imdb.com considers the original King Kong (1933) "sci-fi", but considers Peter Jackson's King Kong (2005) "adventure" and Kong: Skull Island to be "Fantasy". There's truly nothing sci-fi about it, unless you are an advocate of the long-discredited Hollow Earth Theory put forth in Skull Island (this theory would've been okay in, say, a 19th century novel, but today it's laughable to put it in the same realm as science).

This movie is a re-boot of King Kong, not a sequel; they don't even acknowledge a previous Kong in New York City. As I mentioned in a previous post, this is basically the first act of King Kong, but it takes out Kong getting captured and everything after that and says "TA-DA!" and we're supposed to cheer and hope for a future movie with Godzilla.

Even the discovery of Skull Island doesn't make any sense. First, in this day of flight and satellites there wouldn't be any undiscovered places on the globe, and second, you'd think meteorologists would have noticed a place where there's constant storms in one place.

It's interesting that imdb.com considers the original King Kong (1933) "sci-fi", but considers Peter Jackson's King Kong (2005) "adventure" and Kong: Skull Island to be "Fantasy". There's truly nothing sci-fi about it, unless you are an advocate of the long-discredited Hollow Earth Theory put forth in Skull Island (this theory would've been okay in, say, a 19th century novel, but today it's laughable to put it in the same realm as science).

This movie is a re-boot of King Kong, not a sequel; they don't even acknowledge a previous Kong in New York City. As I mentioned in a previous post, this is basically the first act of King Kong, but it takes out Kong getting captured and everything after that and says "TA-DA!" and we're supposed to cheer and hope for a future movie with Godzilla.

Even the discovery of Skull Island doesn't make any sense. First, in this day of flight and satellites there wouldn't be any undiscovered places on the globe, and second, you'd think meteorologists would have noticed a place where there's constant storms in one place.

the part where Kong is captured, brought to civilisation, and then eventually killed. If the other Kong movies enforce the idea that humankind is capable of ultimately dominating nature through superior technology, then Skull Island disputes that by having Kong destroy all the gun-wielding flying machines straight away and pushing the idea that he is a force of nature that can't be controlled or beaten by puny humans (much like Godzilla).

the part where Kong is captured, brought to civilisation, and then eventually killed. If the other Kong movies enforce the idea that humankind is capable of ultimately dominating nature through superior technology, then Skull Island disputes that by having Kong destroy all the gun-wielding flying machines straight away and pushing the idea that he is a force of nature that can't be controlled or beaten by puny humans (much like Godzilla).

The important bit here is the "...in this day of flight and satellites...". The time line of the movie is not set in our modern understanding of the world. It is set during the end of the Vietnam War, and a lot has changed in tech and awareness of our planet in the last, what, 40 years? Mapping Earth by satellite didn't start until 1972. Even if the audience doesn't know their random US NASA spacey stuff history, they spent the first ten or so minutes of the movie dancing around the fact that they are still sat-mapping the earth and had just discovered this island.

To me, pointing that out is on par with criticizing a movie about Columbus mistakenly finding America when he clearly should have just Googled it. But that's just me. The movie is what it is.

Was that a criticism of the movie itself? Or just a reaction to the trailer only? I haven't read the entire thread yet to see who has or has not seen it. I honestly can't remember if the trailer had enough to ground it in the Vietnam War or not, so if it's just a trailer reaction then I guess that could make sense.

The important bit here is the "...in this day of flight and satellites...". The time line of the movie is not set in our modern understanding of the world. It is set during the end of the Vietnam War, and a lot has changed in tech and awareness of our planet in the last, what, 40 years? Mapping Earth by satellite didn't start until 1972. Even if the audience doesn't know their random US NASA spacey stuff history, they spent the first ten or so minutes of the movie dancing around the fact that they are still sat-mapping the earth and had just discovered this island.

To me, pointing that out is on par with criticizing a movie about Columbus mistakenly finding America when he clearly should have just Googled it. But that's just me. The movie is what it is.

Was that a criticism of the movie itself? Or just a reaction to the trailer only? I haven't read the entire thread yet to see who has or has not seen it. I honestly can't remember if the trailer had enough to ground it in the Vietnam War or not, so if it's just a trailer reaction then I guess that could make sense.