Kong: Skull Island (2017)

[Plain Old Tele]

*roar*

[aabattery]

I had fun with it. Worth the price of my IMAX ticket before. Even though I used reward points to pay for it . Tom Hiddleston was garbage if I'm honest with myself but overall the cast worked decently. Nothing special but an improvement over Godzilla IMO. Samuel L Jackson, John C Reilly and Brie Larson's tank top were the standouts for sure.

 

Kong was excellent. The fight scenes were super fun. The CGI was pretty fucking great; it's insane what they can do with it these days. The whole movie had a really unique aesthetic to it, which was cool to see. Vietnam is a gorgeous country.

 

The post credit scene though. Oh BOY. I *really* need those movies to happen.

 

b+.

Edited March 10, 2017 by AABATTERY
changed style to A E S T H E T I C

[DeeCee]

B+

 

It was a lot of fun. Much more enjoyable then Godzilla and Jackson's King Kong.  Definitely a much better group of characters. Even Sheriff Longmire made an appearance. 

 

What was it with the helicopters?  There's 4 Hueys and a Chinook on the front deck and then they're suddenly popping out the back like TIE Fighters. 

 

I loved the Apocalypse Now meets King Kong vibe. 

 

The scientists were like Dharma Initiative instructional videos. 

Edited March 10, 2017 by DeeCee
Added more random sentences.

[RandomCat]

This is going to be one of those As that I give because I loved the movie, despite admitting how flawed it is. Characters are a bit one note, even going so far as cliched "I got a kid back home, now I'm dead" soldier. But Kong was well done, John C. Reilly was great, I loved seeing that coda at the end with him. This does what I think good remakes should do. It's a different story, but still feels right. Kong and Skull Island feel spiritually like that of the original, with giant insects, and at least at one point, dinosaurs. It's fast paced, I was never bored and it was fun. I loved the reference to the original Kong vs. Godzilla. I got giddy over the after credit sequence.

 

I enjoyed this movie a lot, and could easily go back and rewatch it. so I'll give it an A-. Definitely not the best movie of the year, but it is currently one of my favorites.

[aabattery]

I was actually shocked at how gory some of it was. Lots of parts made me go "holy shit!" Standouts of that was the dude getting impaled by the bamboo spider and the Landsat guy getting ripped to pieces. Not to mention a heavy dose of skullcrawler guts.

 

Also, "they sound like birds but they're fucking ants." Some absolutely top tier usage of their one f-bomb.

Edited March 10, 2017 by AABATTERY

[RandomCat]

23 minutes ago, AABATTERY said:

I was actually shocked at how gory some of it was. Lots of parts made me go "holy shit!" Standouts of that was the dude getting impaled by the bamboo spider and the Landsat guy getting ripped to pieces. Not to mention a heavy dose of skullcrawler guts.

 

Also, "they sound like birds but they're fucking ants." Some absolutely top tier usage of their one f-bomb.

 

Best interrupted f-bomb in this movie too.

[JohnnyGossamer]

B-/C+.

[Noctis]

I just came back from Kong. It's a decent, enjoyable time at the theater and the monster battles were fantastic. But everything else was meh. I know it's focused on the monsters but man, some of the soundtrack annoyed me like crazy. 

 

B-/B

 

PS: The Asian actress was hilarious. She served absolutely zero purpose in the film other than saying three lines, and most were no longer than a few words. I've never seen a character so disposable. 

[WrathOfHan]

Meh. It's a decent way to spend 2 hours, but I'm not going to be thinking about this tomorrow. The action was fun enough. The actors did the best they could with the material. Henry Jackman's score sucked. The humor was ok; the only times I heartily laughed were the Ant line and Sam Jackson's last few lines. 7/10 | B-

[somebody85]

I seriously don't get the hate from Youtube. Like I'm baffled because it was exactly what I expected it to be: dumb fun escapist cinema. 

It reminded me a lot of 90s adventure movies like Jurassic Park, The Lost World and Congo. I didn't think any of the story was as dumb as Jurassic World either. And speaking of that film, I can't see anyone who enjoyed JW walking out of Kong dissatisfied with the experience.

I heard so much about the characters being boring beforehand but honestly, I didn't dislike anyone. Yeah the star power was kind of wasted, but I loved how much of it there was on screen at all times and liked everyone a lot more then the characters in Godzilla. Again it really reminded me of Jurassic Park or The Lost World (down to the cliche asshole - who got ripped apart in the sun).

It seems like some think the characters in this are as bland as Independence Day: Resurgence and that wasn't the case for me. Could they have been better? Absolutely. But was I ever bored? No.

I actually liked the dynamic between Bries pacifist vs Jacksons war mongerer even though it could have been handled a lot smoother in many areas. I also liked how Kong wasn't in love with Mason (Brie) this time around and was more of a protector to her. In the scene where they first bond, she is attempting to help an injured animal (this brought back memories of Elle assisting the triceratops from JP) and it made sense for Kong to see her as an ally even though it wasn't told through dialogue.

John C Reilly might have been goofy in the trailers but besides Brie and Jackson, he's the standout and I loved the end sequence that rolled with the credits.

I've also heard people say that there are long stretches of this movie that are just the humans...which is false. The longest human areas that I remember were the setup (lol the docking scene brought me back to Mortal Kombat) and when Reillys character is introduced with the tribe.

I would compare the humans in Skull Island to the audience since we see this world through their eyes. And like most monster movies, they were just the wide eyed spectators of this amusement park attraction and the monsters were the real show.

So yeah, I thought it was a solid turn your brain off adventure film that delivered on it's promises. But if you go into this and question why a character would blare loud music in a jungle full of dangerous creatures...this is probably not the movie for you.

I can actually see it having really good WOM especially with people who grew up with those films from the 90s or the live action ride from Universal Studios.

B

Edited March 10, 2017 by somebody85

[Morieris]

Hoo boy, I got a lot to say about this one. It's extremely rare that i'm sitting in a movie, one I anticipated so much, and was actually thinking "I'm not going to remember 50% of this tomorrow."

 

First: I saw this in DBOX for the first time ever, and it was mostly worth it. The only fault is that the machine itself, on its highest setting, could be stronger for me personally, but the helicopter flight, monster fights, even simple things as walking onto the side of the cliff got a reaction out of it, and it was a pretty fun thing to experience.

 

I gotta talk about this cast, and their characters, and I'm C&P the list straight from the reddit discussion. 

 

Spoiler

 

• Tom Hiddleston as James Conrad

I haven't seen this guy in anything but the original Avengers movie and that didn't leave much of an impression. It was still more than this character here. A tree that Kong hits a helicopter with had more personality than he did and it was on screen for seven seconds. The shot with him slicing up beasts in the gas with that mask was pretty cool, I admit.

• Samuel L. Jackson as Preston Packard

I liked this hardcore determination to "win" at all costs, but that still doesn't mean I felt a thing when he died besides "Damn, another bit of personality gone."

• John Goodman as William "Bill" Randa

Underused.

• Brie Larson as Mason Weaver

Had the same problem Hiddles had up there. They are our leads, we're supposed to feel their wonder, concern, and worry here, but instead I just felt impatient to get back to one of the other characters. 

• Jing Tian as San Lin

I'm not one to complain about "Ew, China is getting into my Western Blockbusters! #damnSJW #liberalPropaganda" but...they could have given this poor girl something to do besides a quick cut to her saying a line and then back out of sight for twenty minutes to the point where I forgot she was there.

• Toby Kebbell as Jack Chapman

Besides the giant monsters, he was the only thing that made me want to watch this movie. I'm a stan, what can I say. & I was pleased as punch he got so much screentime and (well, slightly more) character than most other people, so not a lot of complaints here.

• John Ortiz as Victor Nieves

I don't think this guy was acknowledged more than once. 

• Corey Hawkins as Houston Brooks

Very nice, liked his performance. The 'romance' was a little hamfisted, & I know I said that Tian should have been used more but still - hamfisted.

• Jason Mitchell as Glenn Mills

Underused. I wish we saw more of him.

• Shea Whigham as Earl Cole

Was this the guy who exploded himself? And had that terrible analogy? They said his name? News to me.

•  Thomas Mann as Reg Slivko

 The kid from Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, he was good there, and I was extremely impressed with him yet again. I think he worked best with the scant material. Another promising career.

• John C. Reilly as Hank Marlow

Unfortunately, this is only the third movie of his i've seen (The other two being Wreck it Ralph and that atrocious Cirque Du Freak movie), and I enjoyed his character. It wasn't anything special but it certainly liven up the lack of personality we were subjected to from our leads.

 

If you didn't feel like reading that essay: The side characters had personality and the leads didn't. 

 

I heard a lot of people go "Wow, there were some brutal deaths here!" ... there was one. The action was impressive but I really don't get where the gritty, bloody praise was coming from when it was mostly shadow shots and off screen stuff. Maybe they weren't referring to the humans, because the monster fights were actually pretty wild. I thought the movie had a really nice setup for the first 45 minutes but then got a little long in the tooth when half the cool characters were killed and we were stuck with, well, our 'leads'. Got a little into slog territory.

 

The movie gets started nicely. They were not playing: King Kong is on the screen in about twenty minutes, throws down, and it's awesome. That's probably the single coolest fight in the movie until the finale. While the big setpieces had a good length, flow, and were shot spectacularly, I feel like we only saw four monsters actually do something. If SLJ and his crew are walking through the jungle talking about going to the rendezvous point, should I be looking at a five minute scene without seeing any monster? Sure, I guess the birds flying in the distance count...maybe i've forgotten already what happened...

 

Come to think of it, most sympathetic moments in this movie were just kind of not...earned, or warranted. I didn't think "Hey man, they just realized something! Awesome, character growth!", I thought "Yep, that sounds about right. You stayed inside the lines."

 

It sounds like I absolutely abhorred this movie, but no: I just wanted to like it more. It's still a huge improvement from (especially) Godzilla and Jurassic World. I'll probably be more than happy to watch it again with my dad later. I'm hitting this with a B-

Edited March 11, 2017 by Morieris

[Lizzy]

B- The action scenes were really great and I thought the design of the island and look of the monsters was also excellent but the characters were paper thin, only Samuel L Jackson and John C. Reilly made much of impression. 

[ChD]

I enjoyed it. Great action. Some characters could've used more lines and at least attempts at developing. Amazing cinematography. Still, in the end, a few illogical things really stood out, but that only led to funnier discussions with friends post-movie.

 

1. Helicopters are ready to launch. We see 4 helicopters on the boat. Next shoot, a dozen helicopters. From where?

2. Thank god that tribe developed their protective wall with the idea of boats having to enter and/or leave.

3. "The island is surrounded by a massive storm and it's hard to get on it". We saw the storm and the clouds, thunder and what not - and that was the easiest way to get in. A few minutes pass at most and the Kong reveal happens, with the sun clearly visible in the background and NO. STORM. CLOUDS. WHATSOEVER. VISIBLE.

 

Also... Thank god Weaver had a windproof lighter with her to kill that skull crawler. Earl Cole's death was a fucking joke. The character had great intentions and all that, but they could've killed him off with more dignity. 

 

Still, despite these minor issues and nitpicks. Kong jumping in with a fucking boulder the size of a car and smashing the living bejesus out of that skull crawler was the most 'WOAAAAAAAA' moment of the movie.

 

A-

 

 

[aabattery]

10 minutes ago, ChD said:

I enjoyed it. Great action. Some characters could've used more lines and at least attempts at developing. Amazing cinematography. Still, in the end, a few illogical things really stood out, but that only led to funnier discussions with friends post-movie.

 

1. Helicopters are ready to launch. We see 4 helicopters on the boat. Next shoot, a dozen helicopters. From where?

2. Thank god that tribe developed their protective wall with the idea of boats having to enter and/or leave.

3. "The island is surrounded by a massive storm and it's hard to get on it". We saw the storm and the clouds, thunder and what not - and that was the easiest way to get in. A few minutes pass at most and the Kong reveal happens, with the sun clearly visible in the background and NO. STORM. CLOUDS. WHATSOEVER. VISIBLE.

 

Also... Thank god Weaver had a windproof lighter with her to kill that skull crawler. Earl Cole's death was a fucking joke. The character had great intentions and all that, but they could've killed him off with more dignity. 

 

Still, despite these minor issues and nitpicks. Kong jumping in with a fucking boulder the size of a car and smashing the living bejesus out of that skull crawler was the most 'WOAAAAAAAA' moment of the movie.

 

A-

 

 

 

I thought that was a pretty good spin on his death. Parodying the whole heroic sacrifice shtick.

[filmlover]

An enjoyable creature feature, nothing more, nothing less. The characters are all cardboard cutouts except for John C. Reilly (Brie Larson does the most she can with a sketchily-written role that she signed on for before Room opened), but it's fun and the visuals are just stunning as they were in Peter Jackson's 2005 movie (even though this is a much different movie from that one overall). Just perfectly acceptable summer fare released outside of the warm weather months. The post-credits scene has me intrigued to see what's in store for Kong vs. Godzilla. B

[somebody85]

6 hours ago, ChD said:

2. Thank god that tribe developed their protective wall with the idea of boats having to enter and/or leave.

This! Hahaha it looked like that gate was designed by Universal Studios themselves.

[baumer]

Really good movie.

Lots of fun.

Did anyone else catch Jacksons "Hold onto your butts" line.

 

8.5/10

 

[afalconer7]

Pros:

-Breathtaking visuals and CGI

-Amazing action sequences

-Some good humor

-Some brutal deaths which I did not expect.

-Kong and Skull crawlers were cool

-Credits scene 

 

Cons:

-WAY too many characters. Couldn't even remember most of their names!

-A lot of characters are just there to die.

-Some unintentionally funny moments.

-Tone kind of felt inconsistent at times.

-Spend a lot of times on scenes that could have been used to develop some characters. I didn't care when a lot of them died.

-I don't think Kong is supposed to be that big even though I did enjoy him.

-Noticable green screen at points.

-Poorly edited.

-Cluncky dialouge.

 

I enjoyed it quite a bit at times, but the flaws are very noticeable and I just think it is very weird to hire someone who directed only an indie film (Kings of Summer) Or there could have some studio interference.

If you want to see Kong punch some things then I think you'll enjoy it. 

 

Grade: C

 

[Plain Old Tele]

B-

 

Fun for the monster-smashing stuff. 

[RobinHood26]

Let me just say this. This is my favorite type of movie. Period pieces, jungle, monsters, adventure, its literally everything I want.

 

 

From a pure entreatment and action perspective I really enjoyed it. loved the idea behind all the set pieces, Spiders, gas, and so on thought they were fun. Great cinematography and lighting, I actually really liked the use of 70's music. The time period setting was plus. 

 

The characters though, while fine all kind of do nothing. Other than Riley and Jackson you could delete any character and nothing would change. It was about as thin as a plot can be. Some cool ideas for deaths but they all were kinda the same gag and didn't have too much impact. They were quick and out of no where. We didnt see anyone struggle for 30 seconds only to die. I did find the pacing of the action beats to be well done.

 

The score was lame. beyond average and it lets the whole move down. the 70's stuff was good, but the actual score is non existent. This movie is supposed to be an Adventure, yet the music never take me on one. If this had a Lost world or Kong 05' score at least I probably would have enjoyed it quite a but more to stitch things together. 

 

I don't really wanna go in too deeply to this because its a hard/long thing to explain properly. But hot damn was that ending (the very end/send off) terrible. That is not how you end a blockbuster. Some shitty fake 70's cam post credits scene thats not really a post credits scene because the credits don't start until the middle of the stupid clip. My god, this the of stuff makes me feel like people are flat out dumb.

 

Better than Godzilla. 

 

B (85)