Review: Kong: Skull Island

Kong: Skull Island (12A)

USA 2016 118 mins Dir: Jordan Vogt-Roberts Cast: Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, John Goodman, John C. Reilly, Corey Hawkins

Is it too much to ask for a movie to remain autonomous any more? These days it seems all prospective blockbusters are but one puzzle piece in a wider seralised saga. It’s nothing new – one need only think of the likes of Star Wars that have operated along similar principles – but there’s a frustrating feeling in the modern age that each individual movie holds back more than they give out, teasing breadcrumbs of information that will pay off further down the line.

In either case the latest culprit is Kong: Skull Island, the new instalment in the ongoing Warner Bros./Legendary Pictures ‘MonsterVerse’ that began in 2014 with Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla reboot and is set to continue with… well, that’s either telling, or extremely obvious. However, whereas Edwards’ movie was dramatically ambitious if structurally unsound, deliberately withholding its main spectacle in a manner that was by turns effective and frustrating, Kong is the full Go Ape experience, unleashing its main attraction early on and never letting up.

Placing itself at the tale end of the Vietnam War, the movie picks up with mysterious Monarch agency men Bill Randa (John Goodman) and Houston Brooks (Corey Hawkins) looking to secure funding for an important mission: to geographically survey a remote, uncharted Pacific Island before the Russians get there. The plan involves the co-operation of Samuel L. Jackson’s disillusioned military man Colonel Packard, former SAS operative turned mercenary James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston) and photojournalist Mason Weaver (Brie Larson) and others.

Surrounded by a perpetual storm system, effectively lensed during a seat-gripping arrival sequence, the island is revealed to harbour a lush, beautiful, but terrifying eco-system, at the centre of which lurks Kong himself – and in his latest, towering, bipedal incarnation he’s bigger than any we’ve seen on screen before. Having seen their Army helicopters swatted down like mosquitos, our main characters are split into two factions, red mist-afflicted Packard seeing in Kong a chance to continue the personal Vietnam crusade previously denied him, whilst Conrad and Weaver meet up with island inhabitant Marlow (John C. Reilly), a World War II vet who has been stranded there for the best part of 30 years.

Forget the slow-burn of the seminal 1933 King Kong (the movie that birthed the monster blockbuster) or the baggy build-up of Peter Jackson’s bloated 2005 take. (Let’s put the 1976 Dino De Laurentiis incarnation out of our minds altogether.) In his jump from acclaimed indie Kings of Summer to rampaging epic, director Jordan Vogt-Roberts is admirably honest in his intentions to deliver on the popcorn spectacle consistently and entertainingly. Right from the moment Kong attacks the helicopters there’s a pleasing, intimidating sense of scale to the effects, a nice meshing of Apocalypse Now with Cloverfield that delivers on seat-shaking action (abetted by a rock-strewn soundtrack of early-70s hits), if nothing else.

Handsomely shot in shades of orange, red and magenta by Watchmen DP Larry Fong (further reiterating the Coppola connection), the story can be viewed one of two ways: either as a none-too-subtle critique of colonial expansion and natural destruction, or as an enjoyably dumb popcorn monster movie. In fact, there’s a merger of the two, a potent reminder that glibly dropping bombs on a breathtaking natural habitat can backfore horribly – in this case when dreaded man-eating lizards (or ‘skull-crawlers’ as Marlow refers to them), Kong’s nemeses, are summoned from their subterranean lair.

So, points for spectacle, look and topical intrigue. However the film predictably falls down with its characters and banal dialogue, all-the-more apparent when one considers Vogt-Roberts’ previous film drew success from those very areas. Although Reilly provides much-needed – and welcome – comic relief as the guy who has been perpetually out of the loop (“Did they leave him up there?” is his response to being told about the moon landings), the usually excellent Hiddleston is rather vacant as the Doug McClure wannabe defined more by his accent than anything else.

The assortment of supporting players from Hawkins to Toby Kebbell’s soldier (who of course wants to be reunited with his son) are equally forgettable, although credit must go to the writing of Larson’s Weaver. Not the imperilled heroine of the earlier Kongs but a political activist who pragmatically fights with her camera rather than weapons, it’s a nice upgrading of an area so often given to stereotype.

Looming Kong-sized in the back of everything is the nagging feeling that this is more a franchise buffet than a banquet, a movie whose ultimate importance is overshadowed by the conflict to come further down the line (the inevitable post-credits sequence reinforces this). Nevertheless, as a piece of romping, fun spectacle with a smattering of decent jokes and lighthearted performances, not to mention some genuinely nasty scenes (watch out for those long-legged spiders), it has just enough to roar about.