Movie Review: Kong Skull Island

So last week I went out with the family to see Jordan Charles Vogt-Roberts Kong: Skull Island, which turned out to be a pretty great decision. As with any giant-sized monster movie, the film really benefits from being seen on a big screen. Past that, it was funnier, scarier, and much more interesting that I first imagined.

Taking place in 1973, the film follows a team of scientists, soldiers, a tracker, and a journalist, as they explore Skull Island, a previously undiscovered island for a simple geological survey, but things are not as they seem and the team quickly (and horrifyingly) meet Kong for the first time...

It's important to note for this film that the violence is pretty extreme (not to a horror-movie level, but definitely more intense than a standard action-adventure film), and that Kong himself (modelled largely after the original 1933 film) is pretty awe-inspiring in size and scope.

This film is meant to the first in Universals "Monsterverse", which will eventually include popular Japanese monsters such as Godzilla, Mothra and Rodan, but works as a nice stand-alone film using a historical setting to give the film an interesting aesthetic as well as great standout performances by Samuel L. Jackson and John C. Reilly as well.

In the end the movie was a lot of fun, and considering it wasn't a horror film, a nice way to do a reimagining as well.