Kong: Skull Island

Title: Kong: Skull Island (PG 13)

Year: 2017

Running Time: 118 minutes

Director: Jordan Vogt-Roberts

Cast: Tom Hiddleston (James Conrad), Samuel L Jackson (Preston Packard), John Goodman (William Randa)

Notes: Won one award, nominated for many more.

Rating:  4

Thoughts:  Two crashed WWII pilots have their battle interrupted by a giant ape. We jump to 1973 as a mission heads back to the island to discover more.

Goodman delivers sharply as he negotiates funds and Jackson is fortunately acting, rather than being the cliche he can be, through some scene-setting. But they really could just head to the island and get on with it. And don't worry, Jackson gets some typecast cheese later.

Do we really need the briefing? Do we need all the time on the boat? There are too many characters thrown into the mix, none of them in any depth, and a fairly unsatisfactory explanation as to why they need to bomb the island.

So they use bombs, upset Kong, get split up, then decide to fight him. Well some of them do - guess what? The others are more humanitarian. We also discover the long-stranded US pilot from the opening scene and learn very little about anyone.

Wherever this was filmed looks great, as does Kong and some other non-human elements. But it's all just a bit silly.

I still find the bomb thing dubious but once they have proven their theory, they just keep on bombing - it looks like they want to flush out the beast, but the people doing the bombing still think they are following the original premise. They then start to make the stupid decisions everyone makes to advance narratives in films like this. My favourite line has to be "What the hell is that?" followed by "I don't know." It's clearly a giant ape. It's as preposterous as the scene where Packard faces off Kong, as the former is surrounded by exploding napalm and the latter's head seems to have grown. Or perhaps the sword and gas mask moment.

By the end, I wasn't left really bothering about who made it. The cloying "coming home scene" for the once-stranded airman is also some unwelcome icing on a dodgy cake. Bring back Fay Wray.