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An effective creature feature that has some well designed shots and dazzling special effects. Kong manages to make a somewhat boring character finally exciting. I had a lot of fun watching this film and look forward to the world building it generates.
The government sends a small team of soldiers, scientists, a tracker and a photographer, to a newly discovered island. Constantly hidden by storms and known for making ships 'disappear', they venture there hoping to find...well, anything. What they don't expect to find is a 100 foot ape, known as Kong.
There are shots in this film that don't belong in a 'Hollywood Blockbuster'. What I mean by that is that they are better than what the genre tends to serve us. Maybe it's just me, but there were moments where I thought to myself "this is gorgeous". There are dozens upon dozens of artwork pieces out there that depict small people with giant God-Like beings in the background. It's not hard to see that Vogt-Roberts took some inspiration from them when depicting Kong. The film pays particular attention to scale and seeing Kong here is probably the most exciting since the original Kong in 1933.
What the film does differently than the recent Godzilla picture, is show Kong immediately. Godzilla, we saw glimpses of here and there. Vogt-Roberts wants us to see Kong right from the start and it immediately takes us by surprise. When we finally see a full sized shot of him, it's a glorious homage to Apocalypse Now (obvious inspiration for whole film) and his initial attack is one of the more memorable scenes of this year.
The film falters, as they all do, when it comes to the human characters. We get very little to go on with Tom Hiddleston and Brie Larson. He's a skilled tracker who used to be British Special Forces and she is an anti-war photographer. That's about as much information we get about them. They service the roles fine enough and Vogt-Roberts even manages to reference the Kong-Darrow relationship here with Brie. Samuel L. Jackson is the leader of a team of soldiers known as the Sky Devils. They were literally on their way home when they got the call to go on this mission. Jackson seemed happy and eager to take it, he's a guy whose only purpose seems to be "soldier". He's willing to put the lives of everyone in danger if it means to save one person, or so it would seem at first. The rest of the soldiers are easily identifiable, which helps in knowing who dies or not in the chaos.
John Goodman and John C Reilly fill some supporting roles, with the latter getting the most meat for any character. Reilly plays the comic relief character (no surprise there) but he also has the most emotional story and scenes (surprise there). He is a WWII fighter pilot who crash lands on the island in the opening sequence. Stuck there for almost 30 years, we get a heartbreaking story about his wife just telling him about his baby boy as he left for war. Will he make it off the island to see his wife again? Will he see his son for the first time? Will they welcome him back? Did she re-marry? All these questions plague him, but he remains optimistic no matter what. This film benefits from his inclusion, immensely.
The analogy of western civilization using soldiers to destroy foreign lands and people/creature indigenous to that land is not lost here, it plays a role. But remember, this is indeed a movie about a giant ape fighting other giant creatures. That part of the film, this does very well.
Kong: Skull Island
(Jordan Vogt-Roberts)
(Jordan Vogt-Roberts)
An effective creature feature that has some well designed shots and dazzling special effects. Kong manages to make a somewhat boring character finally exciting. I had a lot of fun watching this film and look forward to the world building it generates.
The government sends a small team of soldiers, scientists, a tracker and a photographer, to a newly discovered island. Constantly hidden by storms and known for making ships 'disappear', they venture there hoping to find...well, anything. What they don't expect to find is a 100 foot ape, known as Kong.
There are shots in this film that don't belong in a 'Hollywood Blockbuster'. What I mean by that is that they are better than what the genre tends to serve us. Maybe it's just me, but there were moments where I thought to myself "this is gorgeous". There are dozens upon dozens of artwork pieces out there that depict small people with giant God-Like beings in the background. It's not hard to see that Vogt-Roberts took some inspiration from them when depicting Kong. The film pays particular attention to scale and seeing Kong here is probably the most exciting since the original Kong in 1933.
What the film does differently than the recent Godzilla picture, is show Kong immediately. Godzilla, we saw glimpses of here and there. Vogt-Roberts wants us to see Kong right from the start and it immediately takes us by surprise. When we finally see a full sized shot of him, it's a glorious homage to Apocalypse Now (obvious inspiration for whole film) and his initial attack is one of the more memorable scenes of this year.
The film falters, as they all do, when it comes to the human characters. We get very little to go on with Tom Hiddleston and Brie Larson. He's a skilled tracker who used to be British Special Forces and she is an anti-war photographer. That's about as much information we get about them. They service the roles fine enough and Vogt-Roberts even manages to reference the Kong-Darrow relationship here with Brie. Samuel L. Jackson is the leader of a team of soldiers known as the Sky Devils. They were literally on their way home when they got the call to go on this mission. Jackson seemed happy and eager to take it, he's a guy whose only purpose seems to be "soldier". He's willing to put the lives of everyone in danger if it means to save one person, or so it would seem at first. The rest of the soldiers are easily identifiable, which helps in knowing who dies or not in the chaos.
John Goodman and John C Reilly fill some supporting roles, with the latter getting the most meat for any character. Reilly plays the comic relief character (no surprise there) but he also has the most emotional story and scenes (surprise there). He is a WWII fighter pilot who crash lands on the island in the opening sequence. Stuck there for almost 30 years, we get a heartbreaking story about his wife just telling him about his baby boy as he left for war. Will he make it off the island to see his wife again? Will he see his son for the first time? Will they welcome him back? Did she re-marry? All these questions plague him, but he remains optimistic no matter what. This film benefits from his inclusion, immensely.
The analogy of western civilization using soldiers to destroy foreign lands and people/creature indigenous to that land is not lost here, it plays a role. But remember, this is indeed a movie about a giant ape fighting other giant creatures. That part of the film, this does very well.