Plot: A team of scientists explore an uncharted island in the Pacific, to map out the last unexplored part of the world.

Monster movies have become well known within mainstream society. Some are not quite as famous as others. But one that has certainly become known across the world for over 80 years is King Kong.

His first appearance in 1933 was in one of the most ground-breaking movies of our time. Fantastic visual effects, a romping adventure story and one of the first scores to have specific pieces of music for certain characters.

We have seen a couple of re-makes. The 1976 version was o.k., but was panned by a lot of critics. Then 2005 saw Lord Of The Rings director Peter Jackson give his vision. For me, that was a tremendous as the original as I love anything Jackson does.
However in the 1960's, Kong returned in another blockbuster that saw him do battle against Godzilla in the Toho International Godzilla franchise.

Now in 2017, Warner Bros. is beginning its own vision of King Kong vs. Godzilla. 2014 saw the Godzilla solo film, which I thought was pretty good. Director Gareth Edwards definitely put his style into that story and felt like something that Toho Studios would do.

I was surprised to see the 1970's setting. But I managed to like that choice in the end. It had an Aliens and Predator feel to it, with hints of Apocalypse Now and the second half of Full Metal Jacket.
The build-up to the action is fairly well executed. The action starts a bit abruptly, then the story moves a bit up and down and that's what happens for the rest of the film.

I would have liked more development of the characters. You can tell that they are trying to show a few subplots of various minor characters. But none of them seem to be fully fleshed out. Instead, we just get a bunch of missed opportunities.
If they were better written, then I think many of the action sequences would have had bigger tension and more meaning as we would be more invested in those characters in case they were in peril.
I could be cruel and say the characters were bland and hollow.

Tom Hiddleston's character could have been great. I think his character was supposed fairly intimidating and the main hero to get behind with. But instead, he's just ok and Hiddleston's charm does enough to make you not totally care if he gets in trouble or not. There is one really strange scene involving Hiddleston that seemed way out of left field.
Brie Larson was fine. From a personal view, I would give her the benefit of the doubt as I am a huge fan of hers. She's a beautiful screen presence, and sadly in this film, it's not much else. Like Hiddleston, I would have liked more from her. These two could have been a great duo. But in the end, it's just two big names that manage to make the characters barely passable.

Probably the most interesting characters are Samuel L. Jackson and John C. Reilly. Jackson does what everyone likes him for. He's solid for the time that he is on screen. There is also a fun little reference to a famous line he has said in one of his previous film. I'll leave to find out which one it is. It is most certainly not the one from 'Snakes On A Plane'.
Reilly's character is given a fair amount of history to make you want to come out of this alive.

John Goodman started well. I was hoping he would a bit like Jack Black's character in Peter Jackson's version. But in the end, he was totally wasted.

There was a little subplot from the minor characters that tried to be something emotional. But it just missed the mark for me. I can see they were trying to those types of memorable side characters like in 'Aliens'. Another missed opportunity.
It is a shame that the characters were never given enough backstory. You can see them trying. But then they just seem to give up and concentration on the action more. For some people, that's fine. But if you want a great movie that everyone can praise highly, then better written characters could have made this a highly enjoyable action blockbuster.

I liked the general look of it and the choice of locations. It looked very tropical and it was great the physical weight of the environment that our characters were getting through. For some reason, there were a few moments that the surroundings that looked very digital. I'm not sure if that was done after filming on location. But it just looked strange as to why they did that when they actually did on-location shooting.
The soundtrack was either well-used or slightly over-used. Some songs were great to have as a backdrop for some scenes. But there were a few moments when they slightly over-used some songs, which reminded of Suicide Squad. But on the whole, I liked the choice of songs from the period that they chose to set this film in.
The design and mythology of King Kong was pretty good. It is not as big of an achievement compared to the 1933 original or Peter Jackson's version with Andy Serkis doing the movements. But this was still a perfectly functional monster that look good on screen.
The creatures looked pretty cool. There were a set of creatures that while I understood there purpose, it just felt a bit pointless. They were just a simple plot device for our main protagonists to fight. I'd much prefer something a bit more threatening and have more meaning to the story.

I must say that there are some major inconsistencies with the editing and tone shifting within the writing especially. While the monster-on-monster scenes are well executed, the character scenes are very random. There are a lot of unnecessary use of fast cutting and slow motion shots that only last for about a second or two. That reminded me of something that Michael Bay or Zack Snyder would do. It was quite an aggressive way of shooting those particular scenes that were hard to feel comfortable with.
In terms of the tone, there were some scenes that took me out of the overall tone of the film. They felt more like deleted scenes that somehow made the final cut. In relation to the tone, a lot of attempts of comedy fall flat. A few worked for me, but the rest were like a lead balloon.

Despite those problems, I still found to be a fun watch. I liked the action, the general look of it and the world-building. But the characters were not well written enough to make this a great film.
It is weird, because I could call this a missed opportunity. But there still managed enough content on screen to keep me interested as I was never bored. I would probably prefer the Godzilla instead as it was more consistent and invested in its tone.

I must mention that there is a post credit scene. If you are a fan of the Godzilla films from Toho productions, then you will be excited to see this one. I certainly was.

Rating: 7/10