While not quite measuring up to the likes of Peter Jackson's 2005 remake of the classic monster movie, Kong: Skull Island certainly carves out its own place in the pantheon of monster flicks. Featuring an unusually large incarnation of the titular primate, the film crashes along like an equally monstrous beast, shamelessly enjoying its own spectacular style and mindless action. Even occasionally poking fun at itself, the film is essentially the first summer blockbuster of 2017, coming at least two months too early. A sort of breathless adventure that easily scoots you along its two-hour running time, it reminds us that Oscar season too comes to an end, and that the age of extended franchises and multiverses remains alive and well.
If you've ever seen a Kong movie, you know the plot. If you haven't, shame on you. I won't bore you with the mundane details of the premise except to say that this picture is indeed a part of a larger franchise: the Warner Bros. / Legendary Entertainment MonsterVerse, begun by the brilliant Godzilla in 2014. The post-credits scene indicates the direction of the new franchise by revealing the studio's acquisition of other monsters, apparently including Mothra, Rodan, and Ghidorah. Whereas Godzilla felt like an art-house flick that happened to have an enormous budget, Kong feels every bit the costly major studio bash it is, replete with screwball soundtrack and tons of thick CGI. Avoiding the epic scope of Jackson's film, this one instead seems content with being a messy little fever dream of violence. Silly little jump scares and up-close monster battles edited at a frenetic pace keep us bewildered and excited. Layer in the tongue-in-cheek dark humor and pseudo-dramatic close-ups and you've got a beast of a picture that's not quite as horrifying as giant lizards and spiders but more exhilarating than an island of giants. So to speak.
Characters are thinly written, as if the writers are reminding us that we should only be watching for the spectacle. Dry, dark, and occasionally hilarious (though only meaning to be so half the time), the characters fill out an ensemble a little too big for its own good; even as each team member is introduced we ignore their names and roles because we know they will end up dead eventually. The ones who do matter capture our attention through sheer beauty (because the script gives them almost no help): Tom Hiddleston and Brie Larson are the two that matter here, make no mistake. While likable performers surround them, these two stars allow their characters to be fleshed out even in silence, existing fully in their world through the sensation of touch. They strike up a familiar rapport in the film and always seem to have each other's back, a nice dynamic shift of camaraderie in a film of violent mercenaries.
With its vivid, feverishly colored energy and '70s-style vibes, we might wish that it had given into its wild side a bit more. There's so much potential for craziness in a tale like this, and when married to pulsing lights and vibrant hues I can't help but feel the writers missed some golden opportunities. Instead they stick to formula, ignoring the potential fun in the native human presence, other giants on the island, and even the invading characters themselves. Casting the likes of John Goodman and Samuel L. Jackson was smart, but could have been better if their characters had contracted the same sort of apish madness that, for example, John C. Reilly's has caught. On an island where they clearly don't belong, they probably should have demonstrated some Heart of Darkness-level of crazy.
Then again, I was totally fine ignoring the lack of story and characterizations. I was busy filling my eyeballs with Tom Hiddleston being the perfect gentleman-mercenary in that tight blue t-shirt. Holy bananas.
IMDb: Kong: Skull Island
No comments:
Post a Comment