Kong: Skull Island

"Kong's a pretty good king. Keeps to himself, mostly. This is his home, we're just guests. But you don't go into someone's house and start dropping bombs, unless you're picking a fight."

Filmology Rating: 2.63 out of 4

A group of scientists, soldiers and adventurers explore a mythical and uncharted island of the Pacific Ocean…. Big mistake. Their mission of discovery soon becomes a mission to survive.

With the newest edition to the long list of King Kong movies, “Kong: Skull Island” provides a lot to like and a lot to dislike. I couldn’t help but leave the theater feeling like something was missing. This film had a lot to offer and yet it felt incomplete.

My problem isn’t with King Kong himself because in that aspect, he was phenomenal. This was the biggest the Kong has ever been portrayed and it was really cool to see. He was huge, intimidating, had rage and a soft side, and the animation was fantastic. The special effects and the action sequences with Kong involved were by far the best part of this movie. Action that did not involve Kong was more often than not, just ok; they seemed very cheesy and lacked intensity.

My problem here is with the characters. The only REALLY good character in the movie was the one that John C Rielly portrayed. He was fantastic and added both the humor and the emotion. Every other character honestly needed work. Now how is that possible? With a cast of Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, John Goodman, and a bunch of other faces you will recognize, how could this happen? “Kong: Skull Island” had three writers, Dan Gilroy, Max Borenstein, Derek Connolly, all of which have worked on big name films you will recognize, (Jurassic World, Godzilla, Nightcrawler), and yet collectively they failed to write good characters. Rielly and Jackson were the only ones to have any backstory or believable motivation for their actions and Jackson was barely that. Leaving the theater, I couldn’t recall one good scene of dialogue that offered any type of emotion, actual humor, or memorable dialogue (other than when Samuel L. Jackson said “hold on to your butts” which referenced the original Jurassic Park). So I was really disappointed with the characters in this film because it had sooo much potential and it didn’t even scratch the surface of what it could’ve offered.

The next issue is something that is becoming an issue in Hollywood; this is the issue of handing a big budget movie to a director with no experience with such films and who might only have one or two good low budget indie films under their belt. “Kong: Skull Island” director was Jordan Vogt-Roberts…. Yeah who is that? He directed the 2013 indie film “Kings of Summer” that had less than a million dollar budget and made close to that amount as well so unless you are a big indie fan, odds are you never saw this film. Jordan had no experience working with a big budget let along a 185 million! It really showed. This I think was a big factor in why the characters were portrayed so lifeless, boring, and dull. Situations like this have become an issue lately. The directors of the newest Fantastic Four, Jurassic World, The Amazing Spiderman’s, and more, have all had these issues. They have all done good low budget indie films but when handed a big budget, failed completely (Fantastic Four) or weren't as good as they could/should have been. Hollywood please stop making this mistake.

With all this said, there was one of thing that I really liked and that was that they answered the question of where does Kong come from? I really liked how they answered this question and the future possibilities that it opens up. I won’t say much more but stay for the end of the credits!!! Overall, “Kong: Skull Island” needed work with its writing and directing but the special effects were great.

Rating: Rent It

-Nick