Despite Narrative Flaws,
Kong: Skull Island is a Rip Roaring Good Time
by
Kristin Battestella
Without
a doubt the 2017 MonsterVerse cum 2014
Godzilla
prequel Kong:
Skull Island has
its flaws.
One
shouldn't expect perfection or deep thoughts with this fun
jungle ride brimming with action and big monsters. But heck yeah
let's over-analyze the shit out of it, shall we?
Bill
Randa (John Goodman) recruits ex-SAS tracker James Conrad (Tom
Hiddleston) and anti-war photographer Mason Weaver (Brie Larson) to
join the secret government group Monarch's expedition to the elusive
Skull Island alongside Lieutenant Colonel Preston Packard's (Samuel
L. Jackson) elite helicopter escort. Landsat officials and mission
science teams use seismic charges to map and study the island –
awakening ancient monsters friend and foe, government conspiracies,
and personal vengeance as the team rescues crashed World War II
veteran Hank Marlow (John C. Reilly) from the fantastic isle
protected by King Kong.
Kong:
Skull Island's opening
World War II crash transitions to newspapers, archive footage,
and period photography on the mysterious Monarch organization as
audio quotes from Truman and Kennedy lead to bleak 1973 DC protests
and ironic quips about the screwed up time in Washington. Monarch
needs funding to mount this satellite mapping expedition and its
under the rug search amid ominous whispers of ship eating monsters
and Bermuda Triangle fantastics surrounding this uncharted Pacific
island. Fiery explosives reflect in the aviator glasses, animals flee
the seismic bombs, and distorted music is drowned out by the
destruction. People who think they are so big are made small by
Kong's giant hands and teeth – an excellent introduction with
superb monster graphics and motion capture. Warped gunfire and
thumping helicopter blades add foreboding to the mighty monster
silhouettes as separated civilians, stranded scientists, and angry
military argue who takes orders from whom. Nixon winks, geek
references, and “Hold on to your butts!” keeps the old school
cool coming early and often alongside minute to minute action
montages with diegetic classic rock, first person shooter video game
angles, and intriguing camera shots. Skull Island is
an embarrassment of riches with too much to see in one viewing
thanks to wild giant spider impalements and more well done personal
horror vignettes with blood, gore, and brain splatter nods to
Cannibal Holocaust and Evil Dead. Slow
motion over the shoulder fears, creaking animal approaches, that
giant log come to life – aren't walking sticks bad enough?! The
rush to repair a salvaged airplane turned riverboat adds more flying
monsters and aerial fatalities to the adventure. Kong is an angry
mother, but he didn't do anything wrong in protecting his home from
the dangerous creatures man has stirred, and the mission only has its
bombing in the name of science to blame. Fortunately, culture shock
jokes create lighthearted fun, since it's more of a cold war with
summers off, a man on the moon is eating Spam after sipping Tang, and
The Cubs are never going to win the World Series. Likewise the
excellent graveyard sequence combines all Skull Island's divided
and united people with scene stealing visuals, action, and monsters.
Retro picture flashes and rewind clicks accent gritty zooms and
intense monster filming with green gas heightening the sense of
smelly vomit, skulls, bones, and gas masks. Deadly cigarettes,
flames, lighters, and fumes add to the swords and machine guns poised
atop the triceratops skull as man comes to regret the cruel and
violent destruction he has caused.
Of
course, Skull Island is also
a very messy movie with an uneven dual focus. This should be
either a Vietnam, horrors of war, military monster Apocalypse Now
with a photographer and a scientist OR the scientific monstrosity
adventure a la Jurassic Park with one ex-SAS tracker but not
BOTH plots giving nobody their fair share. The us versus them
scientists in blue and military in green sitting on opposite sides of
the briefing is never capitalized upon but redundantly introduces
everyone by name after the
port of call arrivals already suffice. Likewise, conflicting,
convoluted information dumps on hollow earth inklings,
monsters exist proof, nature taking back the planet subtext, and more
conspiracies are lost amid who's doing the suspicious underground
mapping or using dangerous seismic charges – and none of it is as
important as the visual destruction despite precious little time to
enjoy the awe-inspiring views. Increasingly intrusive hip highlights
and filler montages distract viewers with busy, loud hyperbole, and
fine jokes aren't needed to alleviate tension because intercutting
between separated characters walking to and fro for action fodder
never leaves the audience with anyone long enough to appreciate their
peril. Casual wonder, superficial dear family letters, and
featherweight Icarus speeches can't keep up with the up
up up piecemeal quest, soldiers rightfully spazzing over the
giant monkey are paid dust in favor of repeated clicks west or evac
north fluff, and one trek in the wrong direction for a dead man
proves pointless on top of unnecessary revenge. What
should be somber shipwreck history and ancient monster
worship become tossed aside double talk,
and the science dialogue, monsters, and mission
objectives change as people act stupid from scene to scene as needed.
Littering the narrative with so many excuses that we just don't care
how each group of people and their monster attacks tie together is
incredibly annoying because there is so much more potential to the
friend or foe ominous and native people glossed over with photos and
peace signs. Slo mo hold me back man tears turn laughable thanks to
all over the place point of view voiceovers with no time for a
breather properly addressing the nonsensical. Quotes about an enemy
not existing until you make one get squashed between more meandering,
on the nose rock montages while blow torches are convenient in one
scene but forgotten the next. Our two women never talk to each other,
and Skull Island can't stick
to telling its story well because it's so desperate to appeal
to as many bang for its buck viewers as possible – leaving the
World War II radiation and ancient cave paintings hodgepodge to do
nothing but set up the inevitable sequel.
All
the people should have been listed in the blurb at the bottom of the
Skull Island poster because
no one character is fully developed – least of all top billed Tom
Hiddleston as tracker James Conrad, who spends more time giving
repetitive exposition on clicks, radius, or distance and unnecessary
let's go, no time to waste obviousness. It's also noticeable that the
character concept was changed when T. Hiddy was cast – perhaps in a
Legendary twofer contract with Crimson Peak – or
during filming, for the grimy shirt jaded and gritty bearded
wanderer is traded for a sunshine blonde matinee idol buff. It's like
a different guy shows up for the mission! When meeting Conrad in the
bar, he's ruthless with a cue stick. However, on the island, he's the
team negotiator, going from a rugged bad ass asking for five times
the mercenary money to...Tom Hiddleston. Viewers see him as himself
in Skull Island and The
Night Manager rather than his
Loki visage – maybe because it looks like he's wearing his own
clothes again onscreen – but someone should have been in
charge of his eye candy fitness as his increasing muscles or
shrinking wet shirt vary throughout the adventure. The mysteriously
decommissioned tracker also suddenly cares, sneaking into restricted
areas to check out the bombs and question the mission even though
Conrad never gets to use this seemingly new found good guy muster.
His great line, “I suppose no man comes home from war, not really,”
and brief mentions of his lost father – Tom, please, no more
characters with daddy issues! – go unredeemed save for dad's handy
lighter to rectify a lifetime of searching for something you can
never find. Instead of calm, problem solving Conrad challenging
Packard, our expert tracker gets lost and seeks higher ground before
taking charge anyway after useless self sacrifices. Despite
his name, there's very little Heart of Darkness to
Conrad, yet the character remains overly serious and that
divine accent feels out of place – taking longer and prettier to
say his exposition in a different, formal rhythm amid all the fast,
casual slang. Although he has the best gas mask glory moment in Skull
Island and some of the samurai
choreography is reminiscent of the first advance in 300,
our would be hero has no
winking Indiana Jones moment nor does he take off his shirt. Why hold
back when you can go all the way? But hey, those biceps aren't enough
to forgive the fact that Conrad wears a gun in a shoulder holster and
never uses it!
With
our rugged man and Brie Larson (Room) as anti-war photographer
Mason Weaver, Skull Island feels
very The People That Time Forgot. However,
Weaver doesn't cry out for her camera's safety or click away
as much as she perhaps should. She never runs out of film and such
gear perils or mishaps could have been an ongoing gag, but Conrad
seems to look out for her camera more than she does. There is
rightfully no overt romantic plot further
crowding Skull Island with
unnecessary saccharin, yet their feeling each other out banter
should have been utilized more – Weaver interrupts Conrad's hero
zoom by motioning for him to move over on the helicopter seat and he
does. All these charming, award winning thespians have so little room
to breath, leaving Weaver with lame one liners and nothing to do. The
“Bitch, please!” retort for her to have several seats isn't the
right response, but her trite platitudes won't get all these macho
men pointing guns at each other to stand down either. Fortunately,
her outfit isn't uber skimpy, and Larson's modern earthy look is
perhaps the most seventies style in the cast. Weaver goes from
skeptical equals Pulitzer to island believer saving injured animals
too quickly with no depth to her island connections if any before
ending by saying she will expose their information rather than keep
this precious ecosystem secret. She could have been a hippie tree
hugging activist woman alone in tune for peace with Kong, but
Weaver's touching moments with the ape are too few and far between.
Whether there is some kind of native spirit and island good to
counter the evil creatures below isn't explored, and while all the
scientists pick up guns, Weaver shoots with her camera only – a
nice statement that just leads to her getting rescued by Conrad in
every dangerous situation. A brief moment of her refusing a gun and
more of her resourceful ingenuity as with Conrad's handy lighter
would have added better character strength and humor. Sadly, Skull
Island has both Weaver
taking pictures to expose Monarch and John Goodman's (The Big
Lebowski) underutilized Bill Randa recording film for his secret
organization's posterity. What is the point of having both such rival
documentarians on the trip when they never even have the chance to
object to each other onscreen?
But
why you gotta be mean like that to Kong, Nick Fury? Despite the
Vietnam withdrawals underway and orders to head home, Samuel L.
Jackson's Colonel Packard isn't ready for the war to end. He wonders
what this the fight was all for – accepting this final mission
without considering the families and day jobs waiting for his Sky
Devils stateside. Packard resents the camera and the media's
influence on the war as more dangerous than a gun, and objects to
calling the battle lost. He's upset at Kong for destroying his
helicopter team, blaming the ape and demanding payback when he's the
one who ordered them to fly through the island's nonsensical storm
front. There's room for more psyche, but other plot contrivances
compromise Packard's fanatical. His insistence on taking out Kong
instead of the more deadly skull creature continues even when his
reason for pursuing one over the other is proven more fatal, and
Packard gets around the island just fine without the obligatory SAS
tracker, gutting any tension the two are apparently supposed to have.
After aimlessly walking for half of Skull Island, Packard
needlessly divides the group when they actually come together, and
any deeper hates the monster because he hates himself guilt about
man's supposed superiority is never fully explored. Certainly
the Lieutenant Colonel did nothing wrong in ordering his men and
defending his homeland from the horrors of war, but he takes the
extinguishing the wrong monster too far and doesn't learn from any of
the mission's bureaucratic stupidity, ultimately using napalm to
flush out more creatures than he can handle. Likewise his soldiers –
family man macguffin Toby Kebbell (Control), headband wearing
Thomas Mann (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl), and letters to
his mama Jason Mitchell (Straight Outta Compton) don't listen
to local information on avoiding island perils. At once they decide
it's all for one and one for all while telling others they will be
left behind if they don't like the plan, and none of them go against
the Colonel even when he is wrong and the chain of command has
broken. Although dead pan Shea Whigham (Boardwalk Empire)
eating in the face of giant apes is good levity, the too crowded
Skull Island keeps these
military men stereotypically hip with shirtless photo sessions and no
questions asked until after the fact rather than developing any
killer edge e.g. Predator.
There
are simply so, so, so many superfluous people in Skull Island that
you can argue almost anyone doesn't really need to be here.
Landsat fraidy cat John Ortiz (Fast
& Furious) deserves more
than ticking the Hispanic check box with his own personal homage to
Jurassic World. This
looks like a diverse ensemble with representation from all
walks of life, but it isn't diversity if each monster fodder minority
has five cliché lines while the white people save the day. Geologist
Corey Hawkins (24: Legacy) and biologist Jing Tian (The
Great Wall) look like they filmed their scenes separately from
everyone else. Their brief conversations happen with no one else
around and they don't really interact with anybody on the island –
simultaneously missing the opportunity for statements on the
struggles of a well educated black man with a radical theory while
nonetheless desperate to appeal to Asian markets with an intelligent
but meek biologist who barely speaks. Hawkins' Houston Brooks objects
to the titular craziness with almost the exact same words as Mann's
Slivko, and eventually, the scientists are told to go back to the
boat – which they easily find and operate without Conrad holding
their hands. The post-credits scene likewise has them repeating
Randa's words on the monsters to come while again telling us not much
of anything on Monarch's intentions. Fortunately, John C. Reilly's
(Chicago) kooky World War II castaway Hank Marlow is the most
dynamic character in Skull Island. He's
happy these new found people are real because he's more than ready to
get home to beer, hot dogs, and the Chicago Cubs, becoming the only
fish out of water in this crazy habitat that receives any narrative
payoff. I also dare say Marlow's opening cross cultural duel
turned bond with Japanese singer Miyavi as Gunpei Ikari and their
subsequent hear tell eight attempts to leave the island during their
forced twenty-eight year sabbatical may have been the more
dramatically interesting tale – “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra”
and all that.
Fine
gunfire, brief World War II designs, aerial action, and impressive
photography also pepper Skull Island. A variety of cool ships
accent the beautiful, tropical, misty, hot locations from Hawaii,
Australia, and Vietnam amid lovely waters, deadly swamps, and killer
jungles keeping everyone good and sweaty. There are dangerous rocks,
mountains, vegetation, and animals, too – but that giant water
buffalo thing has a cute nose! Unique
patinas, golden sunsets, neon, bright blues, red lighting, and choice
zooms set off every frame in Skull Island, and
a fiery haze makes the night time battle with Kong befitting
of the island's devilish face shape. However, despite all the old
school touches, Skull Island doesn't feel as aged as it could
be. A 1973 Life Magazine and a record player don't a la the
past when everybody looks so today. The money here is rightfully
spent on the badass ape kids will dig, but younger audiences probably
won't notice the early computers, retro televisions, dark room
photography, old reel frames, slide projectors, or rotary phones and
period references. Fortunately, these creatures are so big that
director Jordan Vogt-Roberts (The Kings of Summer) must pull
the camera back – we can see the well choreographed rumble without
hiding behind panoramic swoops and hectic editing. Kong breaking free
from a shipwreck's chains is a fine homage, and the deleted scenes
with more platoon camaraderie and a bristling introduction between
Conrad and Packard should have been kept. Of course, Skull Island
is available in different
video editions with seller and regional behind the scenes exclusives.
An official comic book also continues the adventure, but I wish the
background material or what happens next wasn't relegated to extras
or waiting on another picture in the franchise. Although, ironically,
Skull Island might have made
a great limited television series with fulfilled episodes dedicated
to our mad military man, lost tracker, photographer, castaway, or
scorned scientists.
Kong:Skull
Island seems like it began with storyboards of cool things for
Kong and company to do with everything else as filler to meet the
feature length duration. There's no time to stay on Skull Island and
explore its myths or monsters, and this does
indeed feel like one mere stepping stone toward the inevitable
Godzilla vs. Kong anticipation
in 2020 thanks to postscript MonsterVerse revelations. Though
entertaining, the forties bookends are abrupt and in between viewers
are spoiled for choice of eye candy. Skull Island is
meant to be a monster money maker and it shows with this sweet
but shallow action. It wants to be man versus man, man versus nature,
and man versus himself, but superficially potlucks all the deep
possibilities. Thankfully, Skull Island is
not a film meant for critical eyes and that isn't necessarily
a bad thing. Despite its narrative flaws, there's just so much fan
service that Kong: Skull Island was bound to be an enjoyable
success.
