Kong - Skull Island
By making the timeline of this movie back in the early 70's allows the movie to spin around retro to make familiar assimilation for both young and old. The addition of a seriously slimmed down John Goodman and still ghettoized Samuel Jackson furthers the movie into yesterday. There's even a headband ala Loverboy, Rambo or The Karate Kid on one of the main actors once folks get onto the island. Even there we're reminded of movies about Vietnam, say those they made 30-35 years ago. Not all this is bad, in fact a time or two retro style effects are added along with todays modern generational CGI; you have the spider amongst the bamboo which is pure camp and robot puppets, not long before definite modern material such as when Kong eats octopus, which scene is part of the modernizing showing at spots along the way. Sushi anyone?
I'm not going to get in the moral issues and lessons learned here in the movie. They are thinly veiled with the reality of today's environment collapsing merely a by-gone result of all things mankind, greedy, and evil. So we find people all through the movie trying to get a piece of Kong's Skull Island. Not so much King himself as in King Kong movies past, more for the island and the resources it offers. They don't capture and remove the great King Kong, as in every one of these movies past. Here too of course is the pretty maiden, whom again Kong falls for, yet it's barely a blimp in the movie, more like a casual nod, until the final scenes, where it gets top billing for a minute or two. The action is fairly balanced and copious throughout. Unlike, say the last Godzilla which had the monster in less than a third of the movie. Every 10-15 minutes there are dinosaur like beasts fighting it out or imperiling the humans through the entire movie. The modern CGI really scores here and despite the drawn out plot and thin cohesiveness, and lack of depth inherit in the film, it manages to keep the kids and the adults interested till the very end.
Score 7 of 10.
By making the timeline of this movie back in the early 70's allows the movie to spin around retro to make familiar assimilation for both young and old. The addition of a seriously slimmed down John Goodman and still ghettoized Samuel Jackson furthers the movie into yesterday. There's even a headband ala Loverboy, Rambo or The Karate Kid on one of the main actors once folks get onto the island. Even there we're reminded of movies about Vietnam, say those they made 30-35 years ago. Not all this is bad, in fact a time or two retro style effects are added along with todays modern generational CGI; you have the spider amongst the bamboo which is pure camp and robot puppets, not long before definite modern material such as when Kong eats octopus, which scene is part of the modernizing showing at spots along the way. Sushi anyone?
I'm not going to get in the moral issues and lessons learned here in the movie. They are thinly veiled with the reality of today's environment collapsing merely a by-gone result of all things mankind, greedy, and evil. So we find people all through the movie trying to get a piece of Kong's Skull Island. Not so much King himself as in King Kong movies past, more for the island and the resources it offers. They don't capture and remove the great King Kong, as in every one of these movies past. Here too of course is the pretty maiden, whom again Kong falls for, yet it's barely a blimp in the movie, more like a casual nod, until the final scenes, where it gets top billing for a minute or two. The action is fairly balanced and copious throughout. Unlike, say the last Godzilla which had the monster in less than a third of the movie. Every 10-15 minutes there are dinosaur like beasts fighting it out or imperiling the humans through the entire movie. The modern CGI really scores here and despite the drawn out plot and thin cohesiveness, and lack of depth inherit in the film, it manages to keep the kids and the adults interested till the very end.
Score 7 of 10.