Kong: A Franchising Agreement
The new Kong: Skull Island is not a remake of 1933’s King Kong horror-adventure spectacle.
It is a franchising agreement.
It was not conceived in darkest jungle of our mind’s imagination, but in the dark recesses of board meeting.
Presumably, after they had discussed merchandising someone remembered to call the story department and round up some actors. Perhaps some daring suit even openly wondered whether it was worth the trouble to put out a film at all – might they instead simply put up posters, release a trailer, then make a deal for kid’s meals with McDonalds?
No, no, he was told. That would be leaving money in the table. We can pre-sell the movie in China and make a bundle.
Thus it was that Kong: Skull Island came to be. If you were looking forward to revisiting the sense of wonderment and adventure you experienced during Peter Jackson’s 2005 remake of King Kong, you will be sorely disappointed.
This newest installment in the Kong canon plays out, not so much as a grand adventure, but more like a picaresque of sinking feelings in the pit of your stomach.
The first sinking feeling comes before the film has even begun, when the logo of Tencent Pictures – a Chinese company previously seen in the credit roll for 2016’s Warcraft.
Sino-American productions have become increasingly common as film financiers in America tap into a rich vein of rubes on the other side of the world. The sole requirement is that the movie lack all subtlety so as to translate across all language and cultural barriers. For Kong, the suits even sweetened the deal with a side role for a Chinese actress (Tian Jing) consisting of maybe 8 lines repeating other characters in a thick accent.
The second sinking feeling comes, after a brief introduction, as the movie cuts to a scene of sign-wielding anti-war hippies outside the US Capitol. Oh no, this movie is set in the 1970s.
Inside the Capitol, a band of quack scientists (led by John Goodman) get permission to explore a mysterious island perpetually shrouded in storm and fog. They are to be accompanied by a chummy platoon of GIs from Vietnam (commanded by Samuel L. Jackson, the movie’s Colonel Kilgore), a liberated female anti-war photographer with a winning smile (Brie Larson, taking a vacation from character depth), a “tracker” (Tom Hiddleston, about as comfortable as an action star as Adrian Brody was in 2010’s Predators) and more fodder for the various giant monsters yet to be encountered.
All the while we are serenaded by “The Best of 70s Rock”. There was a shimmering moment in the third act, when it appeared we might escape without hearing Creedence Clearwater Revival. Alas, seconds later John Fogerty’s raspy screams proclaimed that there was a “bad moon rising.” And there was more CCR to come.
As soon as they get to the island, our heroes come across Kong, or, more accurately, his hand comes across their helicopter formation, whacking them out of the sky and reducing the cast by a good third in a matter of seconds. Genius move by the producer, we thought. He must have saved a fortune on catering.
Kong himself is rather underwhelming – just another big, loud thing. His character arc consists of first stomping on hapless secondary characters, before eventually moving on to a far greater threat that looks like a cross between an alligator and a gigantic, angry tadpole. I won’t spoil it but the Hollow Earth “theory” is involved. And no, it’s not as interesting as it sounds.
Fortunately, John C. Reilly pops in to alleviate all the second-ratedness. He plays the Dr. Livingston/Marlowe/Kurtz of the movie, a World War II pilot gone MIA decades earlier. A wave of welcomed relief washed over us as Reilly, unshaven and wild eyed, delivered what appeared to be genuinely funny lines. The effect was bizarre; had we mistakenly wandered back from the bathroom into the theater? We then allowed ourselves a loud guffaw. Yet, a mystery remained.
It was as if the writers stuck him in out of boredom during their writing sessions, giving themselves something to cling onto as they turned their framed undergraduate degrees to face the wall, sat down in front of their MacBooks, and tried to find dialogue for the Tian Jing to say.
It’s too bad they didn’t follow that instinct to its logical conclusion. This Kong would have worked far better as a campy comedy, with a role for Will Farrell as a craven sidekick. Still, that movie would have likely bombed, whereas this one has done rather well at the box office, so we won’t blame them for sticking to their, literal, guns.
Finally, don’t bother with the 3D version. The movie makes scant use of it.