In a studio-driven film, it is arduous mostly, to break out of churning a conveyor-belt product, no matter how many talented names are involved in it. 2017's onscreen adaptation of the biggest primate known in fictional world sadly traps itself in such a case too.
The moment the picture opens up with a completely unrelated brawl sequence filmed in cheesy Dutch angles, you know the makers have dropped the ball & lost the audiences there and there. It could have just cut to the credits, and sustained the mystery of Kong until the right point comes to reveal it.
If you are hoping to witness characters & developments in this monster thriller, forget it. There are none. All we get are disposable human beings, readily available to be sacrificed on field. You won't even remember any of the names while the show & after it's over. As a standard treatment, we get the customary Blacks, Whites and Asians working together. These actors are there, just for the sake of being there. By far, the worst is Brie Larson's role as Mason Weaver, with a job of taking photos, that's it. The parts where the writers try to connect her and Kong, and the latter saving her from underwater are tacked on dumb. Scenes featuring Jason Mitchell's & Shea Whigham's characters are full of comedy misfires, barring the one that transpires right after the chopper crashes. The latter's decision to sacrifice himself is laughably bad! These add nothing to the picture, and we don't feel or care for any of these people. The writing is such atrocity!
See, the root cause to all of these is the wafer thin script. For one, we have no main character. Is it Kong (motion captured by Terry Notary)? Is it James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston)? Is it William Randa (John Goodman) whose okay motivation & personality changes out of nowhere at the middle of the feature? Or is it Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson)? If there's one persona whom we could truly latch on, it would be of Samuel L. Jackson's Packard. You understand his love for his profession, colleagues & nation. Yes, he is biased & nuts. He wants to go after the creature that's responsible for his loss. It's part of being that character, for which the characterization didn't change even until the end. He has a fire, and you can follow the flame, but that's about it. Upon landing in Skull Island, the film has nowhere to go nor story left to tell. You know these segregated characters need to meet at a common spot, but the way to reach it is of aimless meanderings. Like a long road trip without a destination. Thus, we are fed with humors, conversations, montages with retro song music as backgrounds & scenes that are super forgetful, meaningless & trashy. These are just stuffed in the runtime so that the storyline could be dragged to its culmination apex. You'd feel like yelling: "Stop this bullshit!" when expositions are thrown regarding Kong's past. Seriously, who cares? Why does all these revenge tale between 2 creatures we couldn't care less about need to happen while these people are around? Coincidence much? What was Kong doing since World War II being in Skull Island without killing the Skull Crawlers? And did anyone ask for a resolution featuring the stranded soldier meeting his wife & kid? Again, who freaking cares? What is this picture trying to be?
One redeeming aspect of this motion picture is its remarkable creatures design! Kong, Hornbull, Spider, Sea-By Bird, Squid, Wood Hopper, Skull Crawlers, you name it. A movie is successful when it fathoms what it is supposed to be, and on this note, the filmmakers did great. Kong versus Squid and the climax battle between him & giant Skull Crawler are worth a shot! The teamwork idea promoted during the final action is nice too. But, even in this, the technicians had to go with slow motions to render the actions faker! Slow-mos are used with no real purpose of highlighting anything of importance! There are few good suspense, namely the brimming camera flashlight in stomach & tense tug war to go against Packard or not. The tone shifts inconsistently like nobody's business!
Larry Fong, a frequent collaborator of Zack Snyder has worked behind the lenses for this one. And god, the cinematography is beautiful! Nighttime mist & aurora are gorgeous. You'll really enjoy the topographies. Bobblehead sifting through a thunderstorm is a cool scene choreography. The way the cameraman lit Packard's face with the color red sends a powerful character motivation message. Watch out for the sunrise picturization with Kong standing in complete figure to face the upcoming helicopters! Settings are fantastic too, with the huge gate opening & giant skeleton figures sticking in our consciousness. But the green screens are so pretty obvious! Choice of calligraphy wordings is unique. Some of the scene transitions seconds after big moments are smart, such as inserting bread into mouth & scooping water into tumbler.
With the already flimsy writing the screenplay has, we can't see eye to eye to the logic mistakes too! You can agree of somewhat to the living indigenous population. While the eggbeaters are flying on a top view of the island, why did none of them spot a large creature of any sorts since the place is full of them? How did the normal sized trees & water depths contained these elephantine beings? Kong rips a squid apart for lunch, but gets angry when the Skull Crawlers have other animals for mealtime. The revenge side-story is well… silly? While the mammoth ape destroys every human being it comes into contact with, it somehow leaves Mason unharmed for no reasons. His uncalled for & random appearances at anywhere the storyline wants him to be at is astounding. Skull Crawlers spitting Chapman's (Toby Kebbell) locket right at the spot where the rest are hiding could be the laziest asinine writing! Why are the attires of James Conrad & Mason Weaver millennial contemporaries, for a tale that's happening in 1973? How did these 2 not have a single scratch on their bodies or faces while leaving the island?