ENGLISH TECH LATEST NEWS.: Kong Skull Island Movie Review 2017.

Kong Skull Island movie review: King Kong stomps, smashes, crushes in war against US:

STORY: A bunch of scientists accompanied by a tracker (Tom Hiddleston), photo-journalist (Brie Larson) and army soldiers, infiltrate a mysterious, uncharted territory (Skull Island) to examine it, without realising they have entered the land of King Kong. While a few seek revenge from the mighty ape for killing their compatriots, they soon discover he is not the enemy.

REVIEW: You know exactly what to expect from this film before walking into it and it doesn't let you down. Given the genre, it’s no surprise that this monster movie is immensely formulaic but in its defence, it doesn’t have one dull moment. Fast-paced and gripping, this reboot of the franchise is a taut survival drama that gives you the chills.

Sadly, no matter how talented, since Kong is the king, he renders the A-list cast redundant. His only competition is the monstrous lizards aka skull crawlers and the two giants pretty much rule the roost and hog the screen space, literally and figuratively.

Despite being clichéd, you enjoy the two species slugging it out in the jungle as the humans run helter-skelter, becoming the mere spectators. The CGI-fuelled action in 3D keeps you on the edge of your seat. Watching Kong smash a fleet of helicopters to the ground as we tend to crush mosquitoes is oddly entertaining. The witty repartee between characters makes up for the lack of depth and drama in the screenplay.

While this instalment tries to match up to Peter Jackson's 2005 adventure, it lacks its epic cinematic moments, like Kong scaling the Empire State building. Though British actor Tom Hiddleston and Oscar winner Brie Larson have nothing much to do here except for gawking at the giants and running for their lives, they add credibility to this otherwise stereotypical franchise.

Leading to the big Kong vs Godzilla (2020) clash, if you don’t mind some shallow, video game-esque entertainment, this one doesn’t disappoint.
Kong Skull Island movie director: Jordan Vogt-Roberts
Kong Skull Island movie cast: Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L Jackson, Brie Larson, John C Reilley, John Goodman
Kong Skull Island movie rating: 2
Kong: Skull Island is a lot of things. It is a reboot of the old King Kong franchise, and also the second film in a new series that will eventually feature the giant ape with Godzilla; it wants to be Apocalypse Now, and harks back to Heart of Darkness (there is a Conrad here, and a Marlow, while a Colonel is “losing his mind”); it is about King Kong, but also about many other such beings; and it is anti-war, and revels in war imagery.
Confused? Well, the film certainly is as it moves on two parallel tracks towards an end screaming from afar, leaving in its wake a ravaged island, and a bewildered native tribe that is painted, literally, as being so content that they don’t even need to converse, though they do move around gazing lovingly at the Westerners in their midst.
The West finds itself in this wild East courtesy a curious scientist who suspects that mysterious creatures and happenings reside in the secret Skull Island in South Pacific. The year is 1973, and disappointed American troopers pulled abruptly from Vietnam are deployed with the team of this scientist, Randa (John Goodman). The soldiers are under the command of Colonel Packard (Samuel L Jackson), and they ask, even if timidly, why they are being told to exchange one jungle for another.
The drift the film is taking is further confirmed when the team recruits an ex-British special forces guy as a professional tracker to take them through the Skull Island. Conrad (Tom Hiddleston) is found wasted in a pool joint in Saigon, and is ready to lead the group to what he predicts is certain death for the right amount of money.
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The third outsider is the necessary woman of the King Kong story, who in this film is a photojournalist who has just now made it to the cover of Life magazine. When someone comments on Weaver (Brie Larson) being a war photographer though, she immediately corrects: “an anti-war photographer”. Whatever that is.
At least she seems to be serious about her craft, intent on shooting photos even, literally, in the jaws of death. Of death, there is aplenty, as the Skull Island doesn’t have just the giant ape but many other ancient species, which are set astir by the ‘seismic charges’ dropped by the US Army and company as part of the mission. Bombs of the sort should be a bad idea in any jungle, but no one is asking too many questions.
When the Kong replies in kind, smashing, stomping, crushing several choppers and many of his men, Packard looks deep into his eyes and promises revenge. At one point, Packard in all seriousness suggests that he alone is enough to take care of all the beasts on Skull Island: “I am the cavalry”.
Separated from Packard’s group, Conrad, Weaver and others meet a soldier who had crashlanded here during World War II, Marlow (John C Reilley). Marlow, who has been on the island for 28 years, tells them about the tribes, the Kong and the rest of the island’s history, bringing upon a change of heart.
There are many smart lines in the film, including dubbing the secret species here ‘massive unidentified territorial organisms (sounding like other such grand missions of America)’, about ‘no one really coming out of a war’, and that ‘sometimes there ain’t no enemy till you go looking for one’. However, these don’t come out of any grand conviction about war, peace, or the real enemies in a man vs animal battle.
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You are reminded of another line, at another time. Riding into Skull Island, Packard talks about the legend of Icarus. He talks about the father of that boy who gave him wings made of wax, causing his death when he grew too ambitious and flew too close to the sun. “But the US Army,” he adds, “is not an irresponsible father”.