Film Review: Kong: Skull Island

"It's Time To Show Kong That Man Is King!"

As per the new craze of recent cinematic ventures, the newest big-screen franchising exploration comes in the form of classic Hollywood monsters being revamped and reissued in Legendary Entertainment's so-called "MonsterVerse", beginning of course with Rogue One director Gareth Edward's excellent Godzilla in 2014 and continuing this week with Kong: Skull Island, a "re-imagining" of the infamous giant ape who graces the big-screen for the first time since Peter Jackson's take on the character back in 2005. Helmed by The Kings of Summer director Jordan Vogt-Roberts, as well as featuring arguably one of the best casts of the year with Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, John Goodman and Samuel L. Jackson all vying for screen time, Skull Island is the type of movie which justifies the existence of IMAX-infused mega screens, with the trailer alone being rife with a heightened sense of spectacle and splendour. As for the finished article, Skull Island is indeed the silly, OTT monster-mad movie I think many were expecting without ever pushing the boundaries of being anything more than such.

Light on characterisation yet heavy on the spectacular at times, Skull Island is inherently silly from beginning to end, with a runtime which feels almost half the length of Peter Jackson's epic adaptation but too feels completely different in tone, relying on the effects-heavy production of giant spiders, murderous "skull-crawlers" and of course the titular Kong himself rather than any meaningful contribution to fleshing out its' leading stars in a manner which took up the first hour of Jackson's movie back in 2005. Helping the film along in its' choppily edited fashion is the rip-roaring sound of the 70's, with a soundtrack which ranges from Black Sabbath to David Bowie. evoking the shadow of a film like Apocalypse Now, an argument particularly obvious due to Skull Island's Vietnam War setting, whilst the CGI-fuelled monster-battles feel almost too much like a Jurassic World rip-off at times to be put in the same league of jaw-dropping splendour as its' predecessor within the same cinematic universe, Godzilla. Much likes its' titular ape, Skull Island is a big and fluffy piece of escapism which knows what it wants to be and doesn't attempt to be anything more. Yeah, that's right, Kong is very fluffy. Well, sort of.

Overall Score: 7/10

Film Review: The Great Wall

"There Are Many Things Which You Have Not Seen..."

Rather annoyingly, yet undeniably avoidable, the amount of rabble surrounding the release of The Great Wall, the latest from Hero and The House of Flying Daggers director Zhang Yimou, seems to be one of a rather negative manner, focusing primarily on the notion of "whitewashing" which has encompassed the film's production since its' inception and the original announcement of Matt Damon in the lead role of a movie which consists of a primarily Chinese cast. Once again, cinematic history has been brought up to the floor in terms of the so-called "white saviour narrative", a cinematic construction which has tarnished a selection of films ranging from To Kill A Mockingbird to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and whilst such an argument seems to be one in which I tend to extensively avoid, the case of Damon being front and centre of a film seeped in Chinese culture does seem particularly strange to say the least. After watching the movie however, the main concern regarding The Great Wall is how unbelievably boring and bone-shatteringly dull it actually is, with Yimou's big budget project akin more to a Gods of Egypt-type disaster than as monumental and wondrous as the titular wall itself.  

During a frivolous attempt into the heart of China to gather supplies of the precious "black powder", Matt Damon and Game of Thrones star Pedro Pascal stumble across the famous Great Wall of China, helmed by a multitude of soldiers who are preparing for battle against the Taotie, a mythical alien race who rise every sixty years and attempt to destroy and kill anything and everything the other side of the wall of which has imprisoned them. Cue awful CGI and even worse dialogue, The Great Wall is the type of movie you can only scratch your head at in bemusement of the fact that such a film actually managed to pass through the first phase of development without someone having the balls to stand up and say, "this is a bit pants isn't it?" Whilst Matt Damon's involvement in the project at all is baffling, such a notion is completely forgotten five minutes into the movie when the whole audience in my particular screening realised what they had go themselves into. For a movie which cost 150 million dollars to make, The Great Wall is the biggest waste of a budget since Waterworld, a flop and a half of a so-called "epic" which highlights the argument that just because it's bigger, doesn't necessarily mean it's better. 

Overall Score: 3/10