Kong: Skull Island (2017)
Last Watch Date - February 16, 2026
Total Times Watched - Once
Comments
I figured I should watch Skull Island after finishing King Kong last night. What did I know going in? Vietnam era. That's literally it. I purposely avoided spoilers.
First thoughts on this were that it's more up my alley than the previous in certain ways, and definitely a different tone that may or may not work for me in others. I'm not a big fan of military movies, and this one had a lot of the "military dude gone mad" tropes that I really don't like. But that aside, it was a more fun movie and much tighter.
The very first thing I really noticed was how many of these actors I already knew. It's .. A LOT of them. Very big names in this one, including Samuel L Jackson, John C Reilly, Tom Hiddleston, and Brie Larson. Side note on Brie, I'll never NOT see her as Raffi's weird girlfriend/Ruxin's au pair from The League. I wasn't expecting the JCR character, but he brought some levity into what could've been too dark of a tone. I'm not a long-time Cardinals fan, but still, screw the Cubs.
I appreciate how quickly they got to it here. Instead of dwelling on mediocre characters for over an hour, we basically got to the island and saw Kong within the first 30 minutes. This is what people want in a Kong movie. There was also no silly over-the-top CGI sequences. Everything that was in there belonged and felt like it should be. The climactic battle between Kong and the Skullcrawler was good and had a bit of an homage to the original/2005 versions with Kong liking a female human.
Given the runtime of 118 minutes, it could've floundered here and there but really didn't. It was a tight movie with no time where I felt like I wanted to go do something else. There were also some really fun deaths in this movie. I particularly enjoyed the "sacrifice" that didn't actually work at the end. Good stuff.
Oh, and post-credits has a scene worth watching.
Recommended?
Yeah, this is what a Kong movie should be like. Even if you don't like the military part, it has good monster movie elements.
