Review: 'Kong: Skull Island' is a major flunk

Mar 13, 2017
kong skull island review

In an attempt to assemble a cinematic universe a la Marvel on Warner Bros.’ monster films that include ‘Godzilla’, ‘Kong: Skull Island’ never hammered its audience down with thoughts (thankfully) that the titular giant ape will in fact be crossing-over with other monsters in future films. Instead, the film surprisingly go on a more stand-alone approach, allowing its human and non-human characters flesh out to the narrative. 

The premise is not so new. In fact, this is yet another take on the overly-familiar King Kong story wherein a group of people go to a mysterious island known as Skull Island, rumored to be the place where the beast known as Kong lives. 

Given this familiar story, what must be done to make it work is through a set of characters that are not only captivating but at least someone the audience can empathize. But the film however doesn’t work that way. Instead of giving the best characterization they could have for its characters, it was mostly focused on how they could produce the most visually-enticing scenes they have, resulting to a series of shallow moments that is intentionally there for the sake of looking pretty. For a cast that includes great talents Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, John C. Reilly and John Goodman, all of which are embarrassingly underplayed here, just made the film flunked big time.  


kong skull island review

The marketing of the film has been endorsing ‘Kong: Skull Island’ as something that is heavily influenced by Francis Ford Coppolla’s ‘Apocalypse Now’, a war film that is set around the Vietnam War (where the majority of the film probably took place). There are moments here where the homage to the latter film is obvious, impressively put together by a rapid, punk-ish editing by Bob Murawski and Richard Pearson. 

But then again, it’s very difficult to be convinced by great editing and supposedly exciting action sequences when there’s no character or anything to care about. ‘Kong: Skull Island’, in result, is yet another blockbuster that is too focused on making its shots become the prettiest it could be, instead of having at least a single thought to accompany it. 

The geek rates it 5/10!

Now showing from Warner Bros. Pictures Philippines! Rated PG by the MTRCB.

kong skull island review




Geek out by following The Film Geek Guy:

Facebook: The FILM GEEK GUY
Twitter: @matthew_escosia
Instagram: matthewescosia

Comments

Post a Comment

Related Posts

{{posts[0].title}}

{{posts[0].date}} {{posts[0].commentsNum}} {{messages_comments}}

{{posts[1].title}}

{{posts[1].date}} {{posts[1].commentsNum}} {{messages_comments}}

{{posts[2].title}}

{{posts[2].date}} {{posts[2].commentsNum}} {{messages_comments}}

{{posts[3].title}}

{{posts[3].date}} {{posts[3].commentsNum}} {{messages_comments}}