Kong: Skull Island: More Fun Than A Barrel Of Monkeys

Remember that feeling you had as a kid (or an adult?) when you first watched Jurassic Park? How much fun it was... how cool the effects were... how badass raptors and the t-rex was... how funny Jeff Goldblum was... how it meshed the terrifying with the hilarious and was almost the perfect 'monster' movie? You didn't sit around discussing the lack of character development with Dr. Alan Grant or that we didn't get a character arc from Timmy. You had a blast watching it because it was one of those near-perfect movies that entertains the living hell out of you and makes you forget about your terrible life for two solid hours. This is what Kong: Skull Island accomplishes almost as well. No, I'm not going to blaspheme and say that it is as good as Jurassic Park, but it's damn close... and definitely just as fun. In a time when unnecessary sequels run the theater I can say with certainty that this movie never had to be made. However, it has been made... it is a a shit-load of fun... and it's unbelievably entertaining.

Kong: Skull Island takes place in the 70s, just at the end of the Vietnam War. A scientist (John Goodman) has discovered satellite photos for an uncharted island. He wants to go on a fact-finding mission. So, he enlists the help of an expert tracker (Tom Hiddleston), a war photographer (Brie Larson), and a military escort led by a maniacal general (Samuel L. Jackson). Upon entering the island, bombs are dropped and used as seismometers to be able to "see" underground. This pisses off Kong... king of the island. He shows up and smashes each helicopter to bits. This sets in motion two separate groups' motives-- group one needs to get to the north side of the island in three days to wait for rescue. Group two-- the group led by Sam J'-- wants to kill Kong for killing all the soldiers. Group one meets a man (John C. Reilly), who's been stranded on the island for nearly three decades. He informs them that Kong is not the evil on the island, but these malicious lizard-looking creatures called "Skullcrawlers". And, thus, a race for survival begins.

Everything about this movie is fun. The characters aren't all walking around super-serious-face all the time. They actually have personalities, and whatdayaknow, chemistry. The island is full of mysterious and visually stimulating creatures. There's giant spiders, log monsters, huge carnivorous birds, giant octopi, and a big goddamn monkey. There's thrills and laughter (John C. Reilly's character is about as funny as I've ever seen him in a film... yes, even those with Will Ferrell). The best types of monster movies are the ones that can scare the crap out of you, while also making you laugh so hard you pee just a little bit. I recently watched Tremors again, and thought about how that movie did everything right. Kong: Skull Island is very reminiscent of the feel of Tremors. There's action and intrigue and a very, very well-placed F-bomb that had me rolling even minutes after it was dropped. (Normally, if a film is PG-13 with Sam Jackson, I hope they let him drop it... but this is one situation where he didn't and it one-upped anything he could've done.)

Peter Jackson's King Kong did have a lot of good moments to it. I guess it's aged pretty badly because you rarely hear it talked about positively anymore, but I actually remember really liking it. Yes, it was bloated, and an hour too long, and a bit full of itself... but the stuff on the island really was the most intriguing part. So, to focus the film on the island was actually a very genius move. The other bit of smarts this film has going for it, is that it isn't trying to tell you the same story again. We have seen many iterations of King Kong and we all understand the story. It's like when every Batman movie shows you Bruce Wayne's parents getting shot... WE GET IT. So, not giving us this story again was a great choice by the filmmakers. That way we don't have to wait a while to see Kong. He just shows up and starts smashing shit. It's great. Then, we get all the monsters on the island that both attack Kong (and we get to watch him rip them limb from limb) and humans (so we get to watch them either creatively killed... or work together to figure out a way to kill these big bastards). Literally everything about this movie is entertaining.

Finally, the movie is about as diverse as it can get. There's a female lead. An African-American lead. A couple of white guys. A bunch of Asians getting to play scientists and island people. There's a female Asian scientist (whoa!). This movie is populated with many different characters from many different cultural and ethnic backgrounds all working together. Every seems like they're having a good time too. Hiddleston works great as the Alan Grant-type, tough but tender, leader of the group. Brie Larson is perfectly cast as the photographer who avoids damsel-in-distress tropes and actually uses her brains AND brawn throughout the film. John Goodman is fantastic in everything, so I don't even have to mention him. John C. Reilly steals every single scene he's in... and even a few that he's not. And it's been awhile since we've seen villain Samuel L. Jackson... crazy Sam J... and it's a welcome return to the screen.

The reason you're probably very hesitant to see this movie is because you've seen King Kong several times before. You know the story and you have a pretty accurate idea of what you're going to be watching. What makes this film rise above the suckery is that it isn't trying to be your classic Kong movie... it's trying to be a B-movie with monsters and mayhem and action and humor. It's not trying to be philosophically challenging... it's trying to entertain the shit out of you for two hours so you feel like it's worthy of your money. It's not trying to bog you down by insignificant details like character background (of which there is a limited amount, but in a movie like this, who cares?) or superfluous love stories (there are none, thank God). It's cheesy, it's loud, it's slimy, and it's so much fun I want to go watch it again. I knew it was going to be decent based on the final trailer released, but I still walked away very much surprised at how much I enjoyed sitting in the theater and watching this movie.

A-