Why you can trust GamesRadar+ Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you. 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Find out more about our reviews pജolicy.
When it comes to movie monsters, Kong is king. But in Skull Island, the Eighth Wonder of the World has competition from a tropical paradise full of mythical man-ea𓆉ters. Not just the latest Kong re-imagining, Skull Island is also the second inst🦋alment in Legendary’s MonsterVerse, which will see Merian C. Cooper’s hirsute anti-hero throw down with Godzilla in 2020. In other words, there’s a lot riding on the mighty monkey’s shoulders.
Following a frankly bonkers prologue, the action jumps forward to 1974, where government officials John Goodman and Corey Hawkins assembl✨e a ragtag party to survey th🌱e uncharted Skull Island.
Among the recruits: a former SAS tracker (Tom Hiddleston), a photojournalist (Brie Larson) and a helicopter squadron led by the crazed Colonel Packard (Samuel L. Jackson). The intrusion doesn’t go down well with the island’s protectoဣr – 100ft ape King Kong. But with something even deadlier stirring in the earth, Kong soon becomes the le🐬ast of their concerns.
This isn’t the film you think it is. In contrast to its ultra-serious first t𝓀railer, Skull Island is 🐟fun – pure matinee pulp masquerading as modern blockbuster. At a time when producers have more franchise clout than ever, Kong is a rare director-driven effects movie.
Jordan Vogt-Roberts (澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Kings of Summer) keeps proceedings energetic and fantastically absurd – the first time the island is glimpsed, it explodes on screen, obscured behind a Richard Nixon bo🏅bblehead. The action is slickly staged and thrillingly kinetic, wit𓄧h a pleasing tactility to the effects work, while the exotic location shoot pays dividends.
It’s a satisfꦛying repositioning of Kong as monstrous lonely god. The first time we see him he’s framed to fright. But he’s also a sympathetic beast, Terry Notary’s mo-cap and ILM’s artistry working effectively in unison. Besides, there are also giant water buffalo, serene log creatures and Skull Crawlers – killer critters Kong has gargantuan beef with. If anything, more indigenous is♒land life would have been welcome.
Likely there wasn’t time, given the enormous ensemble cast. Practically ever🐼yone gets solid screen time, even if it’s never enough to care when they die. Jackson is suitably intense as the Ahab-like military man, but it’s John C. Reilly’s stranded WW2 soldier who gets the most compelling arc, a heartfelt story underpinning his fruit-loop insanity.
Toby Kebbell draws the short straw with a char𓂃acter who may as well be called Private Cliché, while Hiddleston and Larson are curiously underserved by straight-laced dialogue and a noticeable absence from the action. The film also takes a few too many of its cues from Peter Jackson’s King Kong. Coupled with the Now That’s Vietnam Movies! compilation soundtrack, it never entirely forges its own identity.
Kudos, however, to a franchise film that doesn’t go to agonising lengths to set up its sequel, outside of a crossover-teasing post-ౠcredits scene. Though with Kong and Godzilla existing on opposite ends of the tonal and aesthetic spectrum, reconciling the two will first require a battle of the behemoths behind the scenes.
I'm the Managing Editor, Entertainment here at GamesRadar+, overse🌺eing the site's film and TV coverage. In a previous life as a print dinosaur, I was the Deputy Editor of Total Film magazine, and the news edit🦹or at SFX magazine. Fun fact: two of my favourite films released on the same day - Blade Runner and The Thing.
