Kong: Skull Island

The two previous King Kong redos have largely satisfied themselves with telling variations of the same story - a party of white explorers go to a mysterious island, they find a giant ape, they bring it back and try to exploit it in New York, the ape goes wild and climbs a giant building, ape gets shot down.

Skull Island plays a little with the formula. Resetting the story into the early 70s, as the US retreats from Vietnam, and confining the action entirely to the island, this instead becomes a story of people invading a world that neither requires nor wants them, and fleeing from the assorted terrors there. Kong here is both threat and protector, a pure force of nature who more than anything wants to keep the status quo.

Our troupe of intrepid adventurers are split between two reasonably bland leads (neither Tom Hiddleston nor Brie Larson are given particularly compelling characters as the tracker and the photographer- the virtues of Larson's character are largely in the absence of the otherwise standard girl-ape romance) and three more compelling character actors - John Goodman, getting most of the exposition as the professorial type behind the expedition; Samuel L. Jackson doing some quality brooding and intensity as the military sargeant who treats the experience as a chance to re-run Vietnam more successfully; and John C. Reilly as a pilot who's been on the island for decades and who has most of the charm in the cast. There are a LOT of bonus characters who are basically death-fodder for the various island creatures, few of whom have much to add other than body count.

This is reasonably enjoyable despite not being spectacularly deep and also quite obviously being a setup for further monster movies to come, largely tying in with the American Godzilla from two or three years ago. If you're looking for particular depth and strength, this is not your movie, but the monster mayhem is reasonably strong otherwise.