Only the existence of 'King Kong lives' prevents this from being the worst Kong film
Material preceding the menu on the DVD includes one of those anti-tobacco ads of the sort that someone thought was hip and creative while in fact being overbearing and tiresome; a trailer for one of Roland Emmerich's heedlessly overcooked disaster flicks; and a fantasy romp from Guy Ritchie (remember him?) so hyper-charged as to look like what would happen to 'Game of Thrones' if it were produced by the same entrepreneurial genius behind 'Empires of the deep.' But I wasn't about to let Legendary or Warner's marketing departments deter my enthusiasm and excitement. From the time it was released I gathered positive word of mouth, the promotional imagery was tantalizing, the premise was promising, some very big stars were involved - and I've loved King Kong, and specifically the original 1933 classic, since I was very young. I sat to watch 'Kong: Skull Island' eight years later with no especial foreknowledge and rather high expectations.
I'm therefore aghast that it's only the existence of 1986's 'King Kong lives' that prevents 'Kong: Skull Island' from being the worst Kong film made up to this point. This is astonishingly bad. As I watched with friends our reactions varied from mocking laughter, to appalled silence, to stunned disbelief, and only with fleeting, scattered, irregular rarity did this ever elicit the slightest of positive responses. I love the cast. I think there were some really good ideas in the screenplay, including the premise, some parts of the plot, some scenes, and some characters. The songs on the soundtrack, in and of themselves, are great, and Henry Jackman's original score is a fine complement to the proceedings. The designs for the creatures that we see are terrific. Such praise is all that I have to offer, however, and to be blunt it's simply not substantive enough to do anything except to arguably save the whole from sinking to the absolute bottom of the barrel. For the level on which this operates, the distinction means so little that maybe we should just let it fall there anyway to dwell evermore.
It turns out that those ads preceding the DVD menu were an ill omen of what I should have anticipated. So was the fact that some stars, like Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, and Samuel L. Jackson, came to this fresh from stints in the Marvel Cinematic Universe; that Jackson starred in 'Cell' one year before; that John C. Reilly made several movies with Will Ferrell doing his tired one-note man-child act; that cinematographer Larry Fong has worked a few different times with Zack Snyder; and so on. The opening minutes made a terrible first impression as the stylized presentation of studio logos led into an extra frenetic, chintzy, overblown action sequence and a very early glimpse at Kong, yet I held out faint hope that maybe the remainder wouldn't be so ill-considered. The unfortunate truth is that it is. The pointless style lent to the studio logos is echoed in the stylization of any text that appears on-screen; the early frenetic feel is mirrored in a far too swift pace that disallows any scene from bearing any weight; the chintziness continues in most every regard; the action is pretty much uniformly gaudy and overblown, a hollow effort at razzle dazzle that does nothing to ingratiate the picture to we viewers. This is so roundly vapid.
Dialogue is achingly awful. There are but scarce moments that a hint of cleverness comes across, including in the humor. There may be good ideas among the characters, but the greatest extent to which any of them are fleshed out is with a veneer portending flat mimicry of tropes, and for all the deaths we'll see on-screen, all of them are utterly meaningless. There is potential in the narrative as a scientific expedition receives permission and a military escort to survey a mysterious island in the last days of the Vietnam War, but far more than not that potential is squandered in how the writers fill out that concept, above all with scene writing that whips past us with little to no rhyme or reason, thought or care, stakes or impact, or consideration for audiences whose demands for engagement are more substantial than jingling keys. Even the very first scene in which this troupe of characters violently encounters Kong is so carelessly considered that pretty much all hopes for subsequent improvement are dashed.
I like the songs we hear, but at least two-thirds of them are the same songs that appear in every Hollywood movie that's set during or involves the Vietnam War. The filming locations are lovely, and the production design tends to be nice, but as with other facets of the visuals, even the most static sights to greet us portend how completely full of themselves everyone was in making this. Overzealous cinematography, overly brusque and snappy editing, rapid pacing, harried action, snarky humor, references both subtle and overt, forced and hokey acting even in something as small as a passing reaction, and grandiose flourishes and embellishments at every possible opportunity all speak to the agonizing Marvelization of modern cinema, and of blockbusters in particular, as the runaway success at the time of an MCU just turning nine years old made every suit in every studio's executive suite think that imitating the formula of almost every MCU installment was the key to success. Well, I guess giving us an iteration of Kong that drinks freely from the same poisoned well of contemporary action pieces was a choice that could be made, but it wasn't a good one.
Then there's the computer-generated imagery - the scourge of cinema. With infrequent exception digital falsehood ages rapidly and looks worse the more we see of it, and the more it's relied upon. It's no small part of why black and white adventure films of ninety years ago, with their stop-motion animation, continue to stand tall while yesterday's latest superhero swill is already forgotten. Even at that, where it's used sparingly or judiciously, post-production visuals can be great; the lightsabers and laser blasts in 1977's 'Star Wars' are now outdated, for example, but though they're not seamless they still look fantastic because of how they were exercised. Immense care can boast immense results. As technology and techniques continued to develop after 2000, however, too many filmmakers seemingly got the notion that it didn't matter if CGI was used well, because CGI can do anything, and therefore CGI should do everything. Yet this rot is a premier example of why that's plainly not the case. A major studio budget of $185 million bought muzzle flashes that are on par with those of The Asylum. Regular green screen artifice looks no better here in 2017 than it did in 'The Phantom Menace' in 1999, including an aurora in the night sky. There is an inane, self-indulgent obsession with distinct colors in many scenes; death scenes raise a skeptical eyebrow, and one in particular looks downright rancid. And as to Kong and the other creatures, well, I really do like the designs. Yet what comes across to me throughout these two hours is that the production was trying so desperately to craft monsters that looked Realer Than Real that they came full circle and come off as too detailed to be real, and therefore sorrily fake. "Just look at all this detail, guys! Isn't it so real? It's so real, right? Please tell me it looks real! We spent so much money on this, please tell me how real it looks!"
And we're still not done, because I don't know how in the world Jordan Vogt-Roberts ever got hired as director. Just as the CGI monsters try so desperately to look real, Vogt-Roberts tries so desperately to make every passing moment Slick And Cool that only the absence of Milla Jovovich tells me that Vogt-Roberts isn't secretly Paul W. S. Anderson in disguise, listening the same brain worm that created the abhorrent 'Resident Evil' sequels 'Afterlife' and 'Retribution.' Why, the interesting setting and fun creature designs might have made this a better 'Monster Hunter' adaptation than Anderson's, if not for the fact that this is, in fact, a Kong feature. Some shots and scenes are grossly ham-handed, others are exhausting as they imitate other pieces, and as if the material weren't already beneath the actors, Vogt-Roberts' direction forces them into overdone, contrived performances that are. Whether we blame the screenwriters or the director, or both, many scenes, plot points, and character choices to greet us are all but senseless, and the actions that characters take at any time - or the precise flow of sequences - absolutely are. Factor in the editing, cinematography, and all else, and I can't for the life of me fathom how 'Kong: Skull Island' ever earned as much as it did at the box office, or earned such a generally positive reception.
I feel like there's still more I'm neglecting as I write this. There's certainly the dubious satellite image we see of Skull Island, and the seemingly changing scale of Kong. There's the inconsistency in one late action sequence, and the questions that are repeatedly raised at the climax. I couldn't possibly have counted how many times I wanted to scream in disbelief at the poor creative choices made again and again throughout the length. I will say that for all that, the sum total IS nevertheless entertaining - but not because it's genuinely worthwhile on its own merits. I'm astounded by just how badly this flounders, and unless one is a completionist, or that type of cinephile like me who will watch anything and everything, I can't imagine ever recommending this to anyone. There are worse things you could watch, and I repeat that one of them was a predecessor of this feature, but that simply isn't saying much. Whatever it is that has made 'Kong: Skull Island' catch your attention, I urge you to just avoid it altogether. If you do watch all the same, you can't say you haven't been warned.
I'm therefore aghast that it's only the existence of 1986's 'King Kong lives' that prevents 'Kong: Skull Island' from being the worst Kong film made up to this point. This is astonishingly bad. As I watched with friends our reactions varied from mocking laughter, to appalled silence, to stunned disbelief, and only with fleeting, scattered, irregular rarity did this ever elicit the slightest of positive responses. I love the cast. I think there were some really good ideas in the screenplay, including the premise, some parts of the plot, some scenes, and some characters. The songs on the soundtrack, in and of themselves, are great, and Henry Jackman's original score is a fine complement to the proceedings. The designs for the creatures that we see are terrific. Such praise is all that I have to offer, however, and to be blunt it's simply not substantive enough to do anything except to arguably save the whole from sinking to the absolute bottom of the barrel. For the level on which this operates, the distinction means so little that maybe we should just let it fall there anyway to dwell evermore.
It turns out that those ads preceding the DVD menu were an ill omen of what I should have anticipated. So was the fact that some stars, like Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, and Samuel L. Jackson, came to this fresh from stints in the Marvel Cinematic Universe; that Jackson starred in 'Cell' one year before; that John C. Reilly made several movies with Will Ferrell doing his tired one-note man-child act; that cinematographer Larry Fong has worked a few different times with Zack Snyder; and so on. The opening minutes made a terrible first impression as the stylized presentation of studio logos led into an extra frenetic, chintzy, overblown action sequence and a very early glimpse at Kong, yet I held out faint hope that maybe the remainder wouldn't be so ill-considered. The unfortunate truth is that it is. The pointless style lent to the studio logos is echoed in the stylization of any text that appears on-screen; the early frenetic feel is mirrored in a far too swift pace that disallows any scene from bearing any weight; the chintziness continues in most every regard; the action is pretty much uniformly gaudy and overblown, a hollow effort at razzle dazzle that does nothing to ingratiate the picture to we viewers. This is so roundly vapid.
Dialogue is achingly awful. There are but scarce moments that a hint of cleverness comes across, including in the humor. There may be good ideas among the characters, but the greatest extent to which any of them are fleshed out is with a veneer portending flat mimicry of tropes, and for all the deaths we'll see on-screen, all of them are utterly meaningless. There is potential in the narrative as a scientific expedition receives permission and a military escort to survey a mysterious island in the last days of the Vietnam War, but far more than not that potential is squandered in how the writers fill out that concept, above all with scene writing that whips past us with little to no rhyme or reason, thought or care, stakes or impact, or consideration for audiences whose demands for engagement are more substantial than jingling keys. Even the very first scene in which this troupe of characters violently encounters Kong is so carelessly considered that pretty much all hopes for subsequent improvement are dashed.
I like the songs we hear, but at least two-thirds of them are the same songs that appear in every Hollywood movie that's set during or involves the Vietnam War. The filming locations are lovely, and the production design tends to be nice, but as with other facets of the visuals, even the most static sights to greet us portend how completely full of themselves everyone was in making this. Overzealous cinematography, overly brusque and snappy editing, rapid pacing, harried action, snarky humor, references both subtle and overt, forced and hokey acting even in something as small as a passing reaction, and grandiose flourishes and embellishments at every possible opportunity all speak to the agonizing Marvelization of modern cinema, and of blockbusters in particular, as the runaway success at the time of an MCU just turning nine years old made every suit in every studio's executive suite think that imitating the formula of almost every MCU installment was the key to success. Well, I guess giving us an iteration of Kong that drinks freely from the same poisoned well of contemporary action pieces was a choice that could be made, but it wasn't a good one.
Then there's the computer-generated imagery - the scourge of cinema. With infrequent exception digital falsehood ages rapidly and looks worse the more we see of it, and the more it's relied upon. It's no small part of why black and white adventure films of ninety years ago, with their stop-motion animation, continue to stand tall while yesterday's latest superhero swill is already forgotten. Even at that, where it's used sparingly or judiciously, post-production visuals can be great; the lightsabers and laser blasts in 1977's 'Star Wars' are now outdated, for example, but though they're not seamless they still look fantastic because of how they were exercised. Immense care can boast immense results. As technology and techniques continued to develop after 2000, however, too many filmmakers seemingly got the notion that it didn't matter if CGI was used well, because CGI can do anything, and therefore CGI should do everything. Yet this rot is a premier example of why that's plainly not the case. A major studio budget of $185 million bought muzzle flashes that are on par with those of The Asylum. Regular green screen artifice looks no better here in 2017 than it did in 'The Phantom Menace' in 1999, including an aurora in the night sky. There is an inane, self-indulgent obsession with distinct colors in many scenes; death scenes raise a skeptical eyebrow, and one in particular looks downright rancid. And as to Kong and the other creatures, well, I really do like the designs. Yet what comes across to me throughout these two hours is that the production was trying so desperately to craft monsters that looked Realer Than Real that they came full circle and come off as too detailed to be real, and therefore sorrily fake. "Just look at all this detail, guys! Isn't it so real? It's so real, right? Please tell me it looks real! We spent so much money on this, please tell me how real it looks!"
And we're still not done, because I don't know how in the world Jordan Vogt-Roberts ever got hired as director. Just as the CGI monsters try so desperately to look real, Vogt-Roberts tries so desperately to make every passing moment Slick And Cool that only the absence of Milla Jovovich tells me that Vogt-Roberts isn't secretly Paul W. S. Anderson in disguise, listening the same brain worm that created the abhorrent 'Resident Evil' sequels 'Afterlife' and 'Retribution.' Why, the interesting setting and fun creature designs might have made this a better 'Monster Hunter' adaptation than Anderson's, if not for the fact that this is, in fact, a Kong feature. Some shots and scenes are grossly ham-handed, others are exhausting as they imitate other pieces, and as if the material weren't already beneath the actors, Vogt-Roberts' direction forces them into overdone, contrived performances that are. Whether we blame the screenwriters or the director, or both, many scenes, plot points, and character choices to greet us are all but senseless, and the actions that characters take at any time - or the precise flow of sequences - absolutely are. Factor in the editing, cinematography, and all else, and I can't for the life of me fathom how 'Kong: Skull Island' ever earned as much as it did at the box office, or earned such a generally positive reception.
I feel like there's still more I'm neglecting as I write this. There's certainly the dubious satellite image we see of Skull Island, and the seemingly changing scale of Kong. There's the inconsistency in one late action sequence, and the questions that are repeatedly raised at the climax. I couldn't possibly have counted how many times I wanted to scream in disbelief at the poor creative choices made again and again throughout the length. I will say that for all that, the sum total IS nevertheless entertaining - but not because it's genuinely worthwhile on its own merits. I'm astounded by just how badly this flounders, and unless one is a completionist, or that type of cinephile like me who will watch anything and everything, I can't imagine ever recommending this to anyone. There are worse things you could watch, and I repeat that one of them was a predecessor of this feature, but that simply isn't saying much. Whatever it is that has made 'Kong: Skull Island' catch your attention, I urge you to just avoid it altogether. If you do watch all the same, you can't say you haven't been warned.
- I_Ailurophile
- Apr 16, 2025