Review of Kong: Skull Island (2017) by Pur__0_0__ — 18 Aug 2021

Honestly I hate King Kong. I can't stand seeing an ugly gorilla killing cool dinosaurs. Initially I had skipped this movie and directly watched Godzilla: King of the Monsters, but seeing how many references of this movie that movie had in the post credits and the fact that I needed to watch this to understand Godzilla vs Kong is why I watched this movie in the first place (I still haven't watched Godzilla vs Kong though lmao). This movie, however, wasn't that bad. In fact the CGI is pretty good.

But that doesn't change the fact that an ugly gorilla is killing cool looking Skullcrawlers here, although I was satisfied that he could win only with the human help. Samuel Jackson plays the role of an annoying general who gets his comeuppance (which is the reason why I have given it such a good rating). He was so irritating. When he said he will kill all the Skullcrawlers after he kills Kong I felt like going in the screen and slapping him. Like, just one scene ago your entire squad got thrashed by only one Skullcrawler child and here you're dreaming of taking down every single one of them you zoophobe!?

The movie takes place on an island in the 70's. Although Kong gets very less screen time and there is too much talking and exposition, it wasn't as bad as the Godzilla movies. The human characters were actually interesting. I liked the part where one of them dies when a giant spider steps on him and everyone thinks it's a tree. The professor who explains the entire context of the tribes worshipping Kong was also an interesting story. In the end they all manage to get away from the island and tell the world about what they saw. It was a good ending. If they had done something like saying why they were going to keep it a secret I'd have legit given it a 1 star rating.

The CGI has been done very well. Although it features a number of cool creatures (the Skullcrawlers especially), it does not induce the same frantasy feeling that Godzilla movies do. It only makes it feel like giant creatures fighting in an island. It doesn't feel "legendary", like what you feel when you watch King of the Monsters' trailer. It just looks... Meh.

Kong: Skull Island may not be some very extraordinary movie, but you do have to watch it if you want to watch Godzilla vs Kong. It's a bit annoying but makes it up with the colour palette. I really hope this is the last time I'm seeing the ugly gorilla. Because I am never going to re-watch this.