Kong Skull Island

Movie Review #8254 KONG SKULL ISLAND
 
Everyone's favourite movie monkey is back in a new time zone with a new set of adventurers on his tail and a new beauty to tame the beast, well sorta.
 
This time the early 70s Vietnam era is the setting for a very slimmed down John Goodman to raise a pack of military and civilians to head to the proverbial uncharted island in the South Pacific to seek out and destroy whatever took out his ship at the end of WWII.
 
Enter Kong as prime suspect fairly early in the piece along with the usual bevy of prehistoric wacky monsters and horrid greeblies turning out to hold us in awe and make our stomachs churn with their yuckiness. Tom Hiddleston takes the role of hero using the proceedings to show off his t-shirt clad muscles to make female moviegoers swoon and the men go, “what a guy!”
 
Seems we can't get enough of giant monsters beating the sh*t out of each other and there's the customary gore abounding as every evil colossus around proceeds to eat the cast. There's also mildly funnyman John C Reilly turning up as a Ben Gunn-ish marooned American pilot who knows all about the island and its inhabitants and he reckons Kong is the good guy!
 
Slightly better than I expected but still a rehash of the tried and true monster formula with very little originality or fresh wow factor. Adequate performances from the leads including good ole Sammy L Jacko in his oft-played tough guy but ever-so-slightly-bad-dude role. CGI spectacular as always, script bland and cinematography hmmm, some interesting angles at least. Worse ways to spend a rainy Auckland Sunday afternoon I guess, and if you're gonna go see it, make sure you do in 3D. 7/10.
 
Geoff Horne