Kong: Skull Island is directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts and is a reboot of the Kong franchise. It follows a team of scientists and soldiers venturing to an unexplored island during the Vietnam War, where they run into Kong and a whole host of other monsters.
When I was watching this film, it struck me that it had many similarities to Warcraft (random I know, but bear with me on this.) Both films had way too many characters, in both films the humans were the least interesting characters, both films had boring action sequences, and Toby Kebbell turned in the best performance in both films. My opinions on this film are similar to my opinions on Warcraft. I didn’t hate it- but it was by no means good.
There are no stakes because you don’t care about any of the characters. The two leads (Tom Hiddleston and Brie Larson) have no interesting qualities, no interesting dialogue and are just completely unlikable. They’re surrounded by a group of soldiers, who all blend into the background with their boring banter, and Samuel L. Jackson just being Samuel L. Jackson. The scenes with John C. Reilly attempted to lighten the mood, but most of his jokes didn’t land and just felt out of place. The Kong scenes were entertaining, but whenever the film was left to be carried by the humans, it just dragged.
This is a mindless action film, which wouldn’t be so bad if the action was actually entertaining. But at most points it’s badly shot, poorly edited and consequently hard to follow- or find interesting. This could have been a stylised Vietnam war film; and it really does try, with its cliched, predictable CCR soundtrack and helicopters in the sunset. However, it just misses the mark in so many ways. It’s not an awful film, it’s just so, so boring.
5/10
