Movie Review—Kong: Skull Island

Kong: Skull Island
Theatrical release poster

by Peter J. O'Connell

Kong: Skull Island. Released: March 2017. Runtime: 118 mins. MPAA Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, and for brief strong language.

Kong: Skull Island, directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts, is the latest iteration of the already thrice-told tale of the big ape's encounter with modern civilization. This movie, though, has major differences from the earlier ones, of 1933, 1976, and 2005. Whereas those three might be summarized as “big ape trashes big city,” this one keeps Kong on his home island rather than Manhattan, and his clashes are with scientists and soldiers intruding there—and with other really, really big critters on the island. 

The template of the King Kong story, established in the 1933 original, has an archetypal power—whether one, in that heyday of Freudianism, viewed Kong as like the id seeking liberation from the restraints of the superego; or in a time of social upheaval, saw him as the representative of the “wretched of the earth” striking out at their oppressors; or with the conservation movement (now “environmentalism”) growing, as a symbol of the natural world resisting exploitation.

The current Kong tale seeks to gain some of that same power through its spectacular computer-generated imagery—King is much bigger than in the earlier versions, for example; “yuge” you might say—but also by borrowing from both a literary classic and a cinematic one.

The literary classic is Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness (1899), which evocatively details narrator Marlow's journey up the Congo River in search of the mysterious “Mistah Kurtz.” The cinematic classic is Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979), which adapts Heart of Darkness by sending a young officer, Marlow (Martin Sheen), up the Mekong River during the Vietnam War in search of the mumbly “Col. Kurtz,” played by Marlon Brando. Heart of Darkness depicts the horrors of colonialism, Apocalypse Now the horrors of war. 

Kong: Skull Island is an adaptation of an adaptation. Set near the end of the Vietnam War, it depicts an expedition to Skull Island, promoted by scientist Bill Randa (John Goodman) and guarded by Col. Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson) and his troop returning from Vietnam. Mercenary James Conrad (!), played by Tom Hiddleston, and photographer Mason Weaver (Brie Larson) are among the expedition members. 

However, instead of traveling upriver to discover “the horror, the horror,” our heroes try to escape downriver from horrors. And the longtime jungle denizen who guides them is neither a mysterious nor a mumbly Kurtz but amiable Hank Marlow (!), played by John C. Reilly, a U.S. pilot who crashed on the island during World War II. 

As far as performances go, John Goodman as Randa is blander than usual; Samuel L. Jackson, as usual, speaks very vehemently; Tom Hiddleston is handsome and well-coifed; Brie Larson (2016 Oscar winner) seems a little embarrassed; and John C. Reilly fits his role like a comfortable slipper fits a familiar foot.

But the real star, of course, is the Big Guy. Vogt-Roberts pays homage to Apocalypse Now by putting helicopters into combat—and Kong effortlessly bats them out of the sky in spectacular scenes that make the audience gasp. And, the word from Tinseltown is that in 2020 King Kong will take on Godzilla!