4/5 Stars

Kong: Skull Island is the newest (third) reboot in the King Kong franchise, and the first installment in in 12 years.  In this new, more explosive interpretation, the story is translated into a Vietnam War-era film as opposed to the the earlier 20th century settings of the other films. Also differentiating it, most of the movie is contained to the island itself. We never see the climactic airplane battle that most Kong movies tend to end with.

The story follows a group called MONARCH who hunt and contain potentially dangerous, potentially non-existant monsters. In a last-ditch effort to save their reputation, they assemble a group of soldiers (led by Sam Jackson), a tracker (Tom Hiddelston), and an anti-war photographer (Brie Larson). The group get stranded on the island after a lethal run-in with Kong himself, and in 3 days must make it to their helicopter escort to get home safe.

Kong is a fun, stupid, awesome, and basic movie. The movie has a bare-bones plot that never takes any risks throughout it’s entire runtime. Similarly, almost none of the characters are anything worth mentioning. Sam Jackson and John C. Reilly are the only two notable exceptions. Sam Jackson plays an entertainingly, vaguely interesting villain who probably has the closest thing to a character arc in the film. His obsession with Kong is fun to watch and his motivations are sympathetic enough. John C. Reilly plays the most enjoyable character in the film, a stranded WW2 vet with a katana. He has a suitably emotional story and also some of the funnest bits, both action and story wise. He’s funny, charming, or whatever is needed at the time. The rest are played by actors who are incredibly charming and fun to watch, but don’t have very real characters to play out and no development whatsoever.

Kong himself is massively awesome and the highlight of the film. Characterized with a level of godliness and wonder befitting of the King, he stomps and smashes his way through all the best scenes. The other monsters on the island are just as entertaining, especially the villainous Skullcrawlers, Kong’s archenemy. They’re surprisingly terrifying and nicely designed.

As mentioned before, the actors are very fun to watch. In fact, all of the movie is fun to watch. While it’s all very simple and safe, perhaps the embodiment of B-Movie monster flicks (although with a bit more money), the director films it with a level of enthusiasm and momentum that’s hard not to love. The action is top-notch, the special effects look good, and the whole thing is a big, fun gift of a movie. It’s hard to not be smiling and laughing along throughout the whole run time, and you find yourself strangely connected to the characters and world by the end. The “world building” is done surprisingly well, not making it TOO obvious they’re trying to make the film into a franchise. The origins of the monsters and the island is similarly dumb fun, and the connections to a surprise other monster movie is a fun, awesome finale to the adventure.

Other high marks are the film’s use of slow motion to highlight some of the best camera shots in the film, and the movie’s soundtrack. While the film itself isn’t very comparable to other Vietnam movies, it employs a soundtrack very similar films of that genre. They further give the movie a sense of fun and momentum, especially during action scenes.

While it’s a simple and very dumb movie, it’s also incredibly fun to watch and well worth the time. Kong: Skull Island is bizarrely a triumph of the action genre and a welcome return to the monster movie genre.