The movies have finally reached the point where every weekend feels like summer, with more and more high-profile films being churned out in months which were once gloriously blockbuster-free. This week’s latest exercise in that practice is the somewhat highly-anticipated Kong: Skull Island. The film’s March release says a great deal about the state of big-budget movies these days and how success for such titles during the months of summer is harder to achieve. Back in the ‘90s, Kong: Skull Island would’ve dominated the box-office hands down, bringing back more than its share of profits to justify its ginormous budget. But this is 2017, and not only would the film not stand a chance in the months of June and July, but with comic mutant lovers still flocking to see last week’s Logan, and fans of classic Disney eagerly awaiting to the arrival of the live-action Beauty and the Beast, Kong: Skull Island has one chance to capture its audience. Whether the film will do this or not will depend on how much audiences are willing to forgive a completely worthless script in favor of some truly fine monster-filled action.
In Kong: Skull Island, a secret research team headed by the determined Bill Randa (John Goodman) secures funding for an expedition to a remote, uncharted island in the hopes of secretly proving the existence of creatures of epic proportions. Before leaving, they recruit the military services of Col. Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson) and his team of soldiers, as well as tracker James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston) and photojournalist Mason Weaver (Brie Larson). When they arrive at the titular Skull Island, they not only discover a WWII pilot named Hank Marlow (John C. Reilly) who crashed at the same site three decades earlier, but they also encounter the presence of a giant ape as well as all of the various dangerous creatures living on the island.
It should be made clear that Kong: Skull Island is fun. A lot of fun. Anyone going to a film such as this is expecting spectacle, which is exactly what the filmmakers give their audiences from start to finish. The film generously boasts a number of adrenaline-fueled sequences between creatures fighting humans, creatures fighting each other, and virtually everyone fighting Kong. Each sequence is packed with the kind of action-pumped flair that leaves an audience member on the edge with their eyes widened and their jaws left hanging. Not only are the sequences plentiful, but they’re also rather artful, with one stunning frame of monstrous carnage after another on display. Kong: Skull Island also features some of the best camerawork for a film of its genre to come along in decades, making the most brutal and intense action come off as beautiful and almost operatic. This is especially true in Kong’s battle with the most gigantic octopus the screen has ever seen and in the group’s heart pounding first encounter with the big ape himself as he welcomes everyone to the island in his own personal way.
Kong: Skull Island only ever stops being fun whenever it decides to get serious. Not only does the film lose its sense of mayhem and adventure during the scenes in which the creatures and the suspense they bring are absent, but it’s during these moments when the ineptitude of the script comes through most. This is especially true in some of the most lazy characterizations to be seen in some time, with almost none of the characters coming across as anything resembling actual people, only conventions. Things get even worse when the film tries to blend its fantastic surroundings with the ideology of its 1970s setting. While placing it in the 1970s means the film possesses a gorgeous look and color tone throughout, its overuse of some of the decade’s most iconic songs is so prevalent it’s an outright distraction. Ultimately, though, Kong: Skull Island fails most of all when it tries to use its star character and the destruction he causes as an allegory for the Vietnam war. Watching this textbook parallel and the standard “make love, not war” comment play out in the dullest of ways temporarily stalls the fun and adds absolutely nothing to what is otherwise a wholly enjoyable experience.
Performances hardly matter at all in a movie like Kong: Skull Island, even if many an actor who has graced this type of film has tried to make a character out of cardboard, inevitably failing at every turn. That’s certainly the case here as most of the humans in the cast are painted as stock characters with stock backstories and motivations. Ostensibly the film’s leading man, Hiddleston seems rather secondary and almost forgettable in spite of the many Harrison Ford/Liam Neeson moves the script has him undertake. Larsen has little else to do for most of the time but look on with wide-eyed amazement at every creature she encounters. Thankfully the actress possesses such a magnetic look and an intensity in her eyes that it almost works. While Reilly and Goodman (both virtually national treasures of film) manage to make their characters appealing thanks to a handful of winning lines and their crackling delivery of them, Jackson is saddled with the most insufferable role of his career. If the script isn’t forcing wannabe catch-phrases onto him, it usually shows him as an unreasonable bloodthirsty mercenary who thinks the war never ended.
Kong: Skull Island unashamedly wears its franchise hopes on its sleeves; at least that’s what it’s not so subtle post-credits scene indicates. It’s no secret that the film is meant to serve as a litmus test for a new franchise in which the likes of Godzilla and Mothra will be revisited for a new generation and for those who probably felt it didn’t need to exist in the first place. Between this, the relentless folks at Marvel and DC, and Universal’s burgeoning classic monsters franchise, it seems that no major studio can actually call themselves legitimate unless they have at least one long-standing tentpole to their name. Although the question that one can’t help but ask is: how much longer can this wave of universe franchises go on for? Are we reaching a peak with an ending to follow eventually, or have we only just begun?
