Review: Kong Skull Island

At its most entertaining when one doesn't take it as seriously as it often takes itself, Kong: Skull Island is an exhilarating resurrection of one of cinema's most iconic characters. The second entry in Legendary Pictures' intended MonsterVerse, the film inverts many of the characteristics that elevated Gareth Edwards' atmospheric Godzilla, most significantly the reveal of its star attraction.

Kong shows up before the opening credits unfold, interrupting a fight between two soldiers - one American, the other Japanese - who have parachuted onto his domain and are rendered awestruck by his fearsome figure. The film proper takes place 28 years later, 1973 to be exact, just as the controversy over the Vietnam War is about to give way to the Watergate scandal. "Mark my words, there'll never be a more screwed-up time in Washington!" conspiracy theorist Bill Randa (John Goodman) bellows with a wink-wink, nudge-nudge to audiences mired in the already troubled infancy of Donald Trump's presidency. Randa has come to Capitol Hill to convince a senator to fund an expedition to find an uncharted island somewhere in the South Pacific. This, he tells the senator, is a place "where God didn't finish creation, a place where myth and science meet."

With the senator's approval, Randa and his team set off for Skull Island. Amongst the key figures: James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston), a former SAS black-ops soldier turned mercenary and tracker; moralistic anti-war photographer Mason Weaver (Brie Larson); amusingly bookish geologist Houston Brooks (Corey Hawkins); and U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson), still bitter over America's performance in the Vietnam War and happy to get himself and his squad of gun-wielding "Sky Devils" back in action. "You're a good group...to die with. You shouldn't have come here," John C. Reilly's Hank Marlow good-humouredly informs them.

Indeed, by the time the team encounter Marlow, a soldier stranded on the island during WWII and living peacefully with the small group of silent natives for the past 28 years, most of them are regretting their involvement in the mission having survived flying through an electrical storm only to run into the mighty Kong, who does not take too kindly to interlopers arriving in choppers and dropping bombs on his island. Kong grabs and swats at the choppers, which resemble mosquitoes next to his gargantuan frame. Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts proves his mettle in his staging of this and the film's other set pieces. There are breathtaking visual flourishes such as the single shot that travels through all the helicopters in the midst of Kong's assault, or the shot where one of the soldiers, dangling off the side of an airborne copter, is shaken loose and falls directly into Kong's canyon-wide mouth.

There are more wonders to be had once the survivors are split up and traverse through the jungle in order to reach the extraction point. As advertised in the film's trailers, Kong isn't the only creature on Skull Island. Super-sized water buffalos emerge from the rivers, giant ants stab through bamboo forests with their legs, birds with chainsaw-like beaks take flight, a multi-tentacled sea creature that entangles itself around Kong, and a large stick-bug that may be Groot's forebear. Most dangerously, there are the lizard-like creatures that Marlow has dubbed "Skull Crawlers," who rendered Kong the last of his species by massacring his family.

Expectedly, the film is at its most surefooted when focused on Kong, whether in repose or in battle. Though not as emotionally expressive as Peter Jackson's Kong or as tragic as previous versions of Kong, this latest incarnation feels more realistic. Perhaps it's the filmmakers decision to set the entire story on Skull Island and to have Kong be more protector than destroyer that makes his nobility and humanity more pronounced. It also helps that this Kong isn't quite as interested in blondes as his predecessors. He and Mason do have a connection but, as with the romantic attraction between Mason and Conrad, it's muted. Whether the former's relationship eventually mirrors the ones in previous Kong movies in future installments of this franchise remains to be seen.

Hiddleston and Larson are well-matched in their blandness and toned tawniness, and it's particularly remarkable how Hiddleston's hair manages to remain immaculate unruffled throughout the entire film. Though they are the purported headliners, they are really the most expendable characters in the bunch. There's a reason why Jackson, Goodman and Reilly are as durable as they are - they know how to invest enough tongue-in-cheek humour in their roles without sacrificing gravity. Jackson's Packard is Kong's true enemy here - for him, taking out Kong is a way to somehow redeem everything that went wrong in Vietnam - and the staredowns between the two are frightening in their intensity. He is the genuine Kurtz in Vogt-Roberts' re-tweaking of Apocalypse Now as monster movie, and his doggedly singleminded pursuit of Kong is arguably more terrifying than Kong's climactic battle with the leader of the Skull Crawlers.

Kong: Skull Island

Directed by: Jordan Vogt-Roberts

Written by: Dan Gilroy, Max Borenstein, Derek Connolly

Starring: Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, John Goodman, John C. Reilly, Jing Tian, Toby Kebbell, John Ortiz, Shea Wigham, Corey Hawkins, Jason Mitchell, Thomas Mann