Kong: Skull Island (2017)

Directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts
Starring Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, John Goodman and Brie Larson
118 Minutes
United States

Thanks to the success of Marvel and the Avengers, "Cinematic Universes" are all the rage nowadays, with everybody seemingly determined to kick start their own cash cow franchise. DC continue to fail spectacularly in every way Marvel succeeds, Universal are bringing back their famous Monsters for an all Universe, and Legendary Pictures' 2014 Godzilla was the start of what has now been dubbed the "Monsterverse", an american series of Kaiju (the Japanese word used to refer to films about giant monsters) movies.

The series is due to introduce other Toho monsters in 2019's Godzilla: King of the Monsters, before culminating in what will surely be the rematch of the century, 2020's Godzilla vs. Kong. Before we can get to all that though, we need to establish the eight wonder of the world himself, which is where Kong: Skull Island fits in. Set in 1970s, it sees a group of scientists and Vietnam soldiers travelling to the titular island for supposed research purposes (organised by the secret government organisation MONARCH which first appeared in 2014's Godzilla). When they get there they make the big mistake of dropping bombs to try to lure out Kong, which goes about as well as you expect as Kong smashes the shit out of all their planes. The team end up split after this, with vindictive Vietnam veteran Packward (Samuel L. Jackson) swearing revenge on Kong for the deaths of his men. At the same time, the rest of the group including tracker Conrad (Tom Hiddleston), photographer Weaver (Brie Larson) and MONARCH official Randa (John Goodman), encounter the natives of the island. They initially appear hostile until it is revealed that they have living among them a stranded World War II veteran named Marlow (John C. Riley) who crash landed on the island after being shot down over the Pacific. Marlow reveals that to that the natives see Kong as their King, protecting them against the more malevolent creatures of the island, including the lizard-like Skullcrawlers, who previously did battle against Kong's parents and reduced him to the last of his kind. Both parties are determined to reunite and get off the Island, however Packward is still dead set on revenge, and the bomb blasts have brought forth hordes of Skullcrawers and other monstrosities to the surface....

For me personally, Kong: Skull Island demonstrates the perfect way to tackle one of these big budget reboots of a popular character. While it gives you all the monster battles and destruction that we've come to expect out of a popcorn flick, the whole thing is treated with an intelligent and cineliteracy that makes it stand out from the crowd. Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts has clearly done his homework. Updating the Kong origin from the 30s to the 70s was nothing short of inspired. Roberts evokes Apocalypse Now with scenes of gung-ho american GI's dropping bombs on a lush jungle environment to Black Sabbath's Paranoid. This is followed by Kong's grand entrance, as he fights back against the invaders on his territory, and this scene personally left me exhilarated. I can't really put my finger on it, but taking one of the most iconic scenes from one of my favourite films of all time (Apocalypse Now) and giving it that Kaiju twist really clicked with me. God knows Apocalypse Now did feel like a horror film a lot of the time, with the imposing nature of the jungle and the sense of going into the unknown, both of which can be applied to Skull Island in the original King Kong. In fact, it makes it so much sense to do a Kong story against the background of Vietnam I'm kind of surprised no one has done it before it now (VietKong if you will). The film takes influences from a range of other sources too. There's a surprising visual reference to Cannibal Holocaust, and Packard's vendetta against the giant ape recalls that of Ahab's against the titular whale in the classic novel Moby Dick.

Kong himself has more in common with his Toho iteration from the 1960s than the original 1933 film. Not only is he similarly beefed up in size compared to the original (after all both versions were designed to be able to fight Godzilla), but he's portrayed more as a more benevolent creature than the confused brute of the 1933 film. This characterisation made sense in the original King Kong vs. Godzilla, as Godzilla was still a villain in his own series at that point and Kong was introduced as the underdog, clearly the one Toho expected audiences to root for. Just like in that film, it's clear Kong is a gentle soul who never goes out of his way to cause destruction, though here he's been made even more tragic through explicitly being the last of his kind. In this way, the Monsterverse is doing right what the 1998 Roland Emmerich Godzilla did wrong. The monsters are characters in and of themselves, not being portrayed as mere animals whose purpose in the film is merely to cause destruction. Between the Monsterverse, 2016's Shin Godzilla and the upcoming Godzilla: Monster Planet anime, the heart of the Kaiju genre keeps on beating, and it's a great time to be fan.

Oh, and stay after the credits too. I got chills.