Review of Kong: Skull Island (2017) by Steven V — 13 Dec 2017

Predictably, the action was fun and effects were good; just as predictably the effect of both had long worn off and become almost boring by the end due to over-use. The 1970's setting was a nice touch and well done, as was the parallelism between the situation on Skull Island and America's failure in Vietnamme (Kong is "just defending his territory" and in a great line a character references how "when you go looking for an enemy, you find one", ie you make one). Still, the over-the-top action ends up less beleivable than the shotty science fiction in the plot (a hallow earth filled with ancient monsters is easier to swallow than how Kong sustains the level of injuries he does without much if any lasting effect... it could almost be considered a continuity issue... he starts out with a nasty laceration from a helicopter properller after all, but later is fine, and bites that seem like they'd sever a limb or tear flesh from bone seem to have no more effect than did the mini gun, napalm, and countless 50 cal rounds direct into his torso). I'm fairly confident if you shrank those weapons down to GI Joe size, those soldiers and copters would have made short work of ME. But, physics is a bummer, I guess. Luckily, the movie keeps itself fun through enough interesting characters and frequent enough use of humor to not take itself very seriously, so we might be willing to do likewise.

Still! Peter Jackson's King Kong (2005) still had a lot more meat to it in terms of substance and style, even while being guilty of many of the same flaws.