KONG: SKULL ISLAND.
Dir: Jordan Vogt Roberts
Cert: 12A
Runtime: 118min

"It's time to show Kong that Man is King!"

KONG: SKULL ISLAND is a treat to the eye and a very enjoyable popcorn flick.

the term "dumb fun" has been floating around this film. and i totally agree.

from the opening scene on the beach during the vietnam war i was hooked, it was stunning.

but... from there, it dragged so much. only redeeming factors were the exquiste cinematography from larry fong, which exploded with aesthetic pleasure.

the establishing shots were immaculate, but those apocalypse now style hellicopter shots oozed with sheer nostaglia and passion. intimate cinematography on that note, every frame was stunning!

brie, tom, john were all fairly good. john c reilly never fails me in movies, and he was the stand out for me. brie was great as per and her character was the most likeable.

but i thought tom was rather weak as was sam l jackson which is rather dissapointing! they were both wasted due to a weak script and blasphemous character intentions.

the fight scenes. oh my. this movie is made for imax, and no other format. it was absolutely breathtaking. the increased sound really made an impact, as did the absolutely mindblowing visuals.

stay for the credits. when i heard that roar, my jaw collapsed.

so it was fun i guess, visually gorgeous and the direction was good from jordan vogt roberts, a very underrated young director with a heck of a lot of potential.

the design of the kaiju were stunning. skull crawlers were nasty, godzilla esque creatures with scarily large mouths, but my favorite of them was the spider; when that scene happened in IMAX, i jumped out of my seat.

but here, Kong is done correctly. i never liked peter jackson's interpretation, as it was far too long and boring. but here, it's almost perfect. he was ruthless, and was not afraid of ensuing gory mayhem (pushing the 12A certificate in my opinion). but it was a treat to see.

screenplay was lacking, and it was done by dan gilroy who did nightcrawler, which was a fluent masterpiece for me. and the fact he wrote this along with others, it really bothered me. just a personal nitpick though.

pacing was a huge issue for me too, as for most of the film, it was around 80% dialogue and plot, and 20% fighting which be honest, we only wanted to see the fighting as that is why we paid the extra money to see it in mindbending IMAX 3D.

one cool thing i found was that the opening credits was very similar to godzilla and pacific rim, and they will be following that formula as we see in the film and if you have followed legendary's plans, that kong will indeed face off against all kinds of kaiju, most notably godzilla!

the soundtrack too, absolutely loved it, and i really admired the approach they made to the whole vietnam war era storyline. it was a different style to what we have seen in previous kaiju films.

overall, its a good time. nothing special personally, but it's dumb fun, and a solid movie.
see it in imax to have the ultimate experience, immersively immense.

77/100