Kong: Skull Island

In World War II, Lt. Hank Marlow parachutes onto an uncharted island only a short distance from the wreckage of his plane.  Moments later, the Zero that shot him down also crashes and the Japanese pilot arrives moments later.  The duel to the death recommences!  After much shooting, running, stabbing, and jumping, it looks like Marlow is about to lose when a huge hairy hand thumps down beside the struggling figures.  A giant ape glares angrily at the two gaping pilots.

 

In 1973, Bill Randa (John Goodman) of the Monarch Company is in Washington DC and desperately trying to get funding for a mission to Skull Island, an island only just discovered thanks to satellite mapping technology.  Making his way to southeast Asia, Randa recruits a former British Special Forces captain (Tom Hiddleston), an "anti-war" photographer (Brie Larson), and an army helicopter squadron commanded by Colonel Packard (Samuel L. Jackson) to go along.  As soon as the helicopters breech the storm system that perpetually surrounds the island, the trouble starts.  Not amused by the seismic charges being dropped on his island, Kong starts taking down these pesky helicopters.  The majority of his men dead and all his helicopters crippled, Packard turns into Captain Ahab on a quest to kill Moby Dick.

 

Kong is immense, much larger than his last incarnation.  Rather than a monster that needs to be supplied with the occasional sacrificial woman like Ann Darrow from time to time, this Kong protects the island from the skull crawlers and other nasty beasts.  Kong gets to fight a lot in this film.  So does everyone else.  There is no shortage of action.  However, it is clear that the makers do not realize just how devastating a .50 caliber bullet can be, even to something the size of Kong or the skull crawlers.  It was also annoying that the helicopters kept flying within arm's length of the giant ape or that they never tried to retreat so that at least one helicopter was still airworthy.

 

The cast is surprisingly large and a modicum of personality is given to lots of characters who are doomed to die.  As such, the principals don't get as much attention as they should.  The stand out characters are Hank Marlow (John C. Reilly) and Colonel Packard.  Everyone else is one-dimensional, including Hiddleston and Larson.  By the end, if everyone except Marlow had died, I'd have been okay with that.

 

Good popcorn fun that sets up the eventual King Kong vs. Godzilla movie.