Kong: Skull Island is so actively bad that there’s no way it could’ve ever been good, even though there are some (deliberately) excellent one-liners scattered throughout. It’s so bad that the bullshit “shouldn’t art-house actors get to make some money once in awhile” excuse does not hold—and when we talk about that we’re talking high five figures versus low seven and you can fuck off—and anyway Tom Hiddleston is Loki and Brie Larson was on a Showtime series for three years so they’re fine unless they’ve invested poorly. There’s a certain bar for monster movies and it’s not very high—make the monster big and frightening and have it wreck stuff—and Skull Island certainly achieves that: Kong is his own landscape, as tall as the sun in some scenes. But the idiots who crash his habitat and drop bombs all over it—“seismic charges,” a ruse led by John Goodman to map this last uncharted island in the South Pacific—deserve every giant monster attack that comes their dumb way. You’re Team Kong before you even know whether you should be. Hiddleston clearly worked out for this tight t-shirted part of a surly tracker but only his pecs have any definition; it’s as bizarre as his slo-mo nuclear hand-to-hand combat scene that completely rips off Holtzmann in Ghostbusters. There’s nothing to do here but laugh, and that is certainly not the point. Bizarrely entertaining, but not recommended.
This article appears in Mar 9-15, 2017.
“Its so bad that the bullshit shouldnt art-house actors get to make some money once in awhile excuse does not holdand when we talk about that were talking high five figures versus low seven and you can fuck offand anyway Tom Hiddleston is Loki and Brie Larson was on a Showtime series for three years so theyre fine unless theyve invested poorly.”
Does The Coast have an editor?
Yes! But sadly, the comments do not.
Is it that hard to write a good review of a bad movie? I don’t mean a positive review, mind you. Stick to reviewing movies you like, those are readable, this is garbage.
Won’t someone PLEASE talk about how many female characters have names?
Anyway, this is actually much closer to something that resembles a movie review, so that’s a definite plus. I knew you were better than that “article” you did about “Logan”, Tara. I personally enjoyed K:SI. I thought the characters were more investment-worthy and rounded than those in “Godzilla” (since we’re talking about the same franchise here), I thought Reilly and Jackson stole the show even though they’re both pretty cartoon-y, they got over that Kong is a sympathetic character and set up well enough for the crossover to come. It worked for me!