GIANT MONKEY BUTT FOR PRSEDINET: Kong Skull Island Movie

agreed though this movie was fun, lots of people getting stomped, chomped, and fucked up, while tom hiddleston and brie larsen look hot the whole time

It was fine

"Best giant monster movie" is stretching it, as Kong, King inevitably falls short of the 1933 original. But it's easily the most successful film of its type released in my monster-watching lifetime, and probably the best since Thoho's 1954 Godzilla. It's funny, fast-paced, thrilling and visually clever, a virtually non-stop megadose of exactly what you'd want to see in a giant monkey flick. The tone is perfect - simultaneously tongue-in-cheek and wide-eyed earnest, reminiscent of Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark - and it's sustained throughout. Kong himself has never looked better or fought cooler.

I'd rank Kong with Fury Road, Guardians of the Galaxy and Pacific Rim as one of the best action-fantasy films of recent years. A subplot involving an unstable military commander (Samuel L. Jackson) is the only weak link, but it's not overstressed.

er "Thoho" = Toho

I am not entirely sure what this movie was getting at, either aesthetically or thematically, which probably means it failed on both fronts. But it was short and painless and generally entertaining enough, as a two-hour diversion. I think it's way too thin and slack to rank with Guardians or Fury Road, but on par with Pacific Rim, or a bit better. In word, fine.

Don't really want to see Kong fight Godzilla, can only assume/hope they'll be on the same side.

I am not entirely sure what this movie was getting at, either aesthetically or thematically

Aesthetically: 70s design fetish + bright pop colors + comic-book simplicity
Thematically: cooperation overcomes opposition + eco-parable

I thought there was some vague war (pro? con? what is it good for?) theme going on, which is why it was explicitly set in the waning days of Vietnam (while at the same time riffing on Vietnam movies).

Not sure I bought it as an eco-parable, but a good case could be made for most of these monsters, yeah, being wiped out. Top of the food chain, most neutral at best or villainous, and pretty clearly not that important to global eco balance or anything. Kong (and Godzilla) (and giant swamp yak) in the minority in this ecosystem, the rest will eat you. Godzilla remains a much better eco-parable, given his relationship with atomic energy, not to mention the way he took down the Smog Monster.

Don't buy cooperation overcomes opposition, either, especially since most of the movie takes place with everyone divided and doesn't really go bad until they get reunited and, well, don't cooperate. Overarching message to me seemed the simplest: don't monkey with a giant ape.

Anyway. Is the idea that the next one will be a Destroy All Monsters riff?

Tonally weird, this movie, too, albeit in a oddly subdued sort of way. SLJ in particular gets a couple of ... conspicuous lines (one a call back to Jurassic, one an ur sort of SLJ line), and Steve Brule in particular gets some super goofy lines, and that touching but totally out of place epilogue.

Glad they eventually stopped with the wall to wall musical era signifiers via portable turntable. Surprised they didn't have Kong himself drop the needle on Hendrix's "All Along the Watchtower" before he fought the final beast.

My audience were in fits of giggles literally every time slj was on screen - he mostly plays it straight which as a rule gets more laughs in this film. People were actually hooting and applauding at the epilogue

I had fun at this once they got to the island, helped along by rowdy audience and the fact I didn't pay for ticket. I can't see how they'll match up the different styles for the crossover, istr the Godzilla film taking itself fairly seriously?

Tonally weird, this movie, too, albeit in a oddly subdued sort of way.

― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, March 12, 2017 1:16 PM (twenty-one minutes ago)

It is, and not just tonally. It's much more strange & playful than I expected ("Good for Your Health", Nixon bobblehead, Zodiac-style production design & costuming in DC, etc). That's what I liked most about it.

I do like that Kong appears in basically the first two minutes, skipping the usual boring build-up/preamble. I also liked the post-credits tag, which I read was done the way it was done because the director wanted to save his CGI monster budget for this movie (well spent!) rather than on a sequel. But then, young me greatly preferred Godzilla and his frenemies to Kong, other than the 1933 one.

Not sure I bought it as an eco-parable, but a good case could be made for most of these monsters, yeah, being wiped out. Top of the food chain, most neutral at best or villainous, and pretty clearly not that important to global eco balance or anything.

...Don't buy cooperation overcomes opposition, either, especially since most of the movie takes place with everyone divided and doesn't really go bad until they get reunited and, well, don't cooperate.

― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, March 12, 2017 1:07 PM (twenty-nine minutes ago)

To the extent that the film has a real message, Kong, like most films of its type, basically just says, "Don't mess with Mother Nature." Prior to the arrival of the outsiders, Skull Island's eco-system is in balance. The apex predator, Kong, keeps the smaller beasties in check. The island's human inhabitants understand this and don't interfere, seeking instead to peacefully coexist. Dr. Brule explains all this. Randa (Goodman) and Packard (Jackson), however, are too caught up in their own personal obsessions to care. They deliberately disturb and oppose, respectively, and havoc predictably ensues.

As far as cooperation as a theme goes, look at the film's opening scene, the battle between the two stranded pilots. We learn later that, once the uniforms came off (hmmm), they became best friends. Look, too, at the film's points about the balance of natural systems and the locals' peacefully defensive adaptation to their environment. Dr. Brule explains that while the islanders don't say much, after spending years with them, he's come to understand what they mean. Compare this with the behavior & attitudes of Randa & Packard, who charge in blindly, seeking to blast the unknown into submission.

I do like that Kong appears in basically the first two minutes, skipping the usual boring build-up/preamble.

Yeah, this was smart. We know what Kong looks like, so there's no point in delaying the reveal. The Island's other inhabitants are the surprise, and they're parceled out nicely. Was hoping that the boss skull crawler would change the design up a little tho...

Xpost Except Kong's parents were killed by those other things, so not clear things are in balance. Liked him eating the octopus, though.

p stoked for this, love basically every kong movie ever made. tempted to precede it by rewatching all of them but i don't have a spare week to spend sitting through the peter jackson version.

This is a lot better than that one. An even 2 hours, and not strictly a redux of Kong '33.

Xpost Except Kong's parents were killed by those other things, so not clear things are in balance. Liked him eating the octopus, though.

― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, March 12, 2017 6:05 PM (one hour ago)

Fair point. Shaky balance, let's say. But yeah, the octopus bit was great. Ape Boy!

i'm glad this doesn't follow the plot of the 1933/1976/2005 versions -- feels like there's so much more to do w/ kong than that particular story

not on your life

I'm gonna go see it on Tuesday :D

I liked that they incorporated so many key images from previous versions of the tale (Kong battles aircraft, Kong in chains, the heroine in his giant palm) while managing to tell a new one. Then again, I suppose that kind of referential fan service is standard for contemporary remakes/reboots.

This was the most hilarious mashup of Apocalypse Now/every Vietnam war movie cliche + Kong

I have no idea why anyone would ever fly *Hueys* into a giant tropical storm but it looked cool so 👍🏻

Kong vs Skullwalker fight had all the monster-vs-monster wrestlemania excitement that I was looking for

nerdy creatureshop sidenote: didn't love the skullwalker monster design... head & front was so dope but seriously, only *two* legs that were like trogdor arms plus the big tail made it offbalance or something, idk it was distracting & looked super weird to me

I enjoyed it as a popcorn movie but I wouldn't rank it anywhere near as high as Pacific Rim

Fun and serviceable, dumb fun etc.

Maybe overall somehow it ends up on par with Godzilla which was beautiful yet dull; whereas Kong Skull island is visually cool but not amazing, not at dull, but Dunno that I need to see it again

boo. i figured if anyone would be with me on this, it'd be you, vg :[

i totally enjoyed it! but at the end of the day it is very simple, paint by numbers. it's fine for what it is, honestly I don't need more for a movie like this. but it doesnt send me into a candystore frenzy

Pacific Rim is a crazy high bar. it was never going to be able to pull off a highwire like that because for me PR is basically the perfect modern "monster" movie.

this ticked boxes but this doesn't feel like a labor of love. it feels like a workable contribution to a franchise & i'm ok with that but I can't give it more credit than it has earned

This was entirely successful

I have a lot to say about this movie

1. Borrowing so much of the look from Apocalypse Now and Platoon registered less like a commentary on war, and almost more like a commentary on how we consume war movies? Like these films were these kind of harsh, unblinking looks at the psychological/physical/mental/financial destruction of war, and America kind of consumed them as popcorn flicks alongside, like, First Blood. Conversely, war movies now, like American Sniper or 13 Hours or whatever, are basically America porn. This was like a total exploitation-style monster flick (the director really loves The Host!) sold as summer blockbuster. Unnecessarily violent and full of amputations and puke and guts – all more than any actual war movie. Between this and Logan (I'm told, I don't watch superhero movies), we're really getting back to that ca. 1990 Verhoeven ultraviolence. I'm with it.

2. You know when you watch like Benjamin Button and there's some remarkably composed shot of a CGI butterfly or something and you're like, "Wow, that's really fucking goofy and takes me out of the movie." This was made like almost entirely of those shots. I can't think of any movie outside of like animation, that keeps setting up these wild Graduation-style edits and super thought out shots. Like just thinking about how auteuristic it is to have a scene where you're looking at a pterodactyl wing and the hero emerges through it by ripping a knife through the center of the screen. Like imagine what that must have looked like on the page?

3. It felt like there was no leading actor? Apparently Tom Hiddleston is listed as lead, but it was really like an ensemble cast of famous second bananas.

4. People have said this before, but it's true: The pace of this movie is incredible. Get them on the fuckin island within 20 minutes

when did they get to the island in the Peter Jackson kong movie? about 90 min in? it felt like it.

5. My only beef was with the music. Like just that hacky every-Vietnam-movie-ever lineup of "Time Has Come To Today," "White Rabbit," "Bad Moon Rising" mixed with some Richard Linklater horseshit of dudes stuck in the fucking jungle for years but being super hip to the Stooges. If they were gonna lean so heavily on CCR, they should have just made it all CCR so there could be some deep cuts in there and a thematic unity

Did anyone see the Godzilla reboot, which is apparantly part of the same cinematic universe

3. It felt like there was no leading actor? Apparently Tom Hiddleston is listed as lead, but it was really like an ensemble cast of famous second bananas.

― SSN Lucci (Whiney G. Weingarten), Monday, April 10, 2017 4:37 PM (twelve minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

like jon c reilly is practically the lead and you can tell some exec added him at the last minute because the movie was missing a heart

Yeah I love Hiddleston but he felt like a very odd casting choice, as though maybe there were a few choices ahead that weren't available? Like, he looks like the Leading Man archetype, but his behaviour and everything was very sedate, and he didn't have a ton to do really.

If it was a meatier, more over the top part it would have called for someone more like a Chris Pratt or idk someone like that, sort of a younger Tom Cruise type who can pull of that intensity "seen some shit' demeanour, special forces background blah blah.

But the role was so watered down that there wasn't much for him to do. And the toffy accent was just a strange fit.

what was also weird to me is that we couldnt find this movie on after 5pm in los angeles except one theater downtown, and the show was basically sold out. this summer movie programming schedule is getting out of control. it used to start around memorial day now it starts the first weekend in march.

this is a bad movie but very, very pretty in 70mm. kong's body hair very tufty and luxuriant in 70mm. they should reprocess all bad movies in 70mm.

This is the kind of film my eight year old self dreamed of and one my middle aged self loved to bits. So much fun.

so the only reason this film exists is so that a godzilla vs kong film can exist then?

i was hoping the seismologist and the biologist would bone down :(

i thought it was kind of weird that hiddleston waited until they'd already marched however long it was away from the kong graveyard to the spot where chapman died to tell them that chapman was dead? wouldn't you bring that up a little sooner, partic if you think this trip is bogus anyway?

i will also admit not quiiite getting why kong was so sweet on lara croft, i mean brie larson. he'd seen plenty of human ladeez before?

then again i saw this movie in french lol so i may have, uh, missed a few things

when i saw the huge thunderclouds encircling the island i half expected one of the navy dudes to look up from his charts and exclaim "my god, that's the biggest break into act ii i've ever seen"

i will also admit not quiiite getting why kong was so sweet on lara croft, i mean brie larson. he'd seen plenty of human ladeez before?

She's a blonde white lady. That's kind of Kong's thing

you're right about the dog tags though. It was like, "Let's just chill in this gruesome boneyard for a while. Oh shit yeah, meant to say that the only reason we're here is already dead. Forgot to mention that."

Saving private Ryan for later

i will also admit not quiiite getting why kong was so sweet on lara croft, i mean brie larson. he'd seen plenty of human ladeez before?

Didn't he see her risking her safety to help that animal out from under the jeep, or helicopter, or whatever had fallen on it?

yeah. but wasn't kong responsible for that dude's plight in the first place? i guess it's easy to overlook a stray beefalo amongst the detritus of the 1000 carcasses of animals you killed in a rage-fit (i wouldn't know)

Oh u wouldn't would u not pfff

JACCUSE

rumbled

i am actually the undead soul of the crawling chaos nyarlathotep soz

I think it did an ok job of conveying that Kong was hulk-level "oh shit what did i get up to last night" Jekyll/Hyde split

Late now to cry spoiler so just wanna say when our grenade priming hero got kicked into the far cliff that was p much the movie moment of 2017 locked down for me

Has cgi got worse since Jurassic Park? This looked cheap as fuck

I agree with a lot of whiney's comments.

There are a ton of shots in this movie that are pretty ridiculously staged but I love all of them. Watching this at home with the handy rewind button at my disposal somehow turns this into a 3 hour movie for me.

I also love the design of the skull crawlers. DID U KNO that they were apparently based on a creature that pops up once in the original 1933 movie? http://godzilla.wikia.com/wiki/Two-Legged_Lizard - that's some good crate digging I think (the skull crawlers' own page on the gojipedia is kind of a candidate for People who have obviously written their own Wikipedia entry, S/D C/D though)

I'm not sure why people are ranking PR so high above this, frankly? Maybe I just have really high standards for mecha and lower standards for gigafauna or whatever

it's dumb and overloaded with CGI, but as a giant monster movie this towers over PR ... better build-ups to better monster battles, better use of a better cast, and better pacing

also: big apes

like, really big apes

I hope the next Godzilla is as much fun as this. The 2020 Gorilla/Gojira stand-off should be insane (and as above, ought to wind up with a team-up against - my guess - some kind of mecha controlled by skynet)

Or perhaps controlled by PRSEDINET rather

Kong taking a copter out the sky mere minutes after it arriving on the island is great

There really aren’t any non-great things done by King in this film.

I love the squid dinner too.

forget godzilla vs kong let's talk about this movie again

this movie is almost fury road level great, only the boringness of the Hiddleston and especially Larson characters, and a bit of lame banter, keep it below that level. a lot of the rest of the cast is pretty good! the effects are great! kong is great but not basically just a big furry person like he was in the new one! as stated upthread, incredible pacing! super colorful but not cartoonish! real-feeling gnarly violence and danger! why hasn't vogt-roberts been hired to do another one of these yet??

The rewatch value of this film is insane. No need to fast forward any dead space. There are a couple of lulls in the pacing but they are tiny and before you know it it’s “Oh Wow! Awesome!” all over again.

I don’t think I’d ever need to watch Kong vs Godzilla 2021 ever again. Or without massive FF’ing.

giant spider took down that imperialist hardcore

a good example of how this movie rules is how they set up the plot thread involving the lone soldier roughing it out while he waits for rescue, then instead have him get brutally eaten and literally gets his gory skull spat out with his tags, because that's what how it goes on skull island! you are the skull!!

lol true true

why hasn't vogt-roberts been hired to do another one of these yet??

possibly getting revenge-ported by his vine star girlfriend, then a sex worker tell-all-ing on the two of them, before the movie, then a porn actress me-too-ing him after the movie for forced kissing on the set of his and TJ Miller’s TV show, made universal determined not to let anyone with their own ideas write a movie at all, let alone hire him again

i watched this again - with my kids, this time - and it really deserves the praise. huge cast handled very adroitly. never lets up. lots of useless/upended bravado. when the grizzled vet decides to spectacularly sacrifice himself but just gets... unceremoniously twatted into a cliff. very vietnam. don't be a hero. just get the fuck out.

could watch hiddleston in a gas mask running through green smoke and slashing a katana through pterodactyls all day tbh

my 9-y-o HATED the slj character. HUGE cheers when he bit it. he even felt bad for the skullcrawler though lol

oh yeah Shea whigam gets one of the most iconic movie deaths in a long time xp

i had forgotten that the hollow earth theory makes a prominent straight-faced appearance in this movie

and continues to be a straight-faced major feature of this monsterverse afterwards

Vogt-Roberts is directing a Metal Gear Solid thing then a Gundam (giant robot suit, I think?) movie for Netflix.

can i tell you how ALL IN i am for both of those??