“Kong: Skull Island,” Not Your Ideal Vacation Spot, But Visit It Anyway

“Kong: Skull Island” a fantasy, adventure, directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts is set in the 1970’s. For those of you too young to remember and not paying attention in history class, that was the time when people had to actually use language to communicate with one another.

Skull Island as imagined by screenwriters, Dan Gilroy, Max Borenstein and Derek Connolly from a story by John Gatins is an uncharted and undiscovered island that lies somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.

The Vietnam War has just ended and a secretive organization known as Monarch led by secret agent, Bill Randa (John Goodman) a major Bermuda Triangle conspiracy theorist convinces the government to fund an expedition to an island that may or may not exist, in the hopes of finding a new species. Since Washington no longer has to pay for  a war and apparently has extra money to spare, they give him the okay.

Rand assembles a crew, which includes the very pissed off,  Lt. Colonel Preston Packard, played by Samuel Jackson, who’s really quite good at playing pissed off; Capt. James Conrad (Tim Hiddleston) a renegade former British mercenary; Houston Brooks (Corey Hawkins), your typical nerdy but brilliant biologist and lastly, a woman. What monster movie doesn’t have a woman, right?  In this case she’s combat photographer, Mason Weaver played by Oscar winner, Brie Larson.

Along with the crew a dozen choppers are brought along in order to penetrate the dense fog and rain that shield the island from view. Maybe that should have been a clue to stay away.

To say their landing goes smoothly, could not  be further from the truth and it doesn’t take the crew long to realize that this island holds many surprises.

One being a man named Hank Marlow (the wonderful John C. Reily) who crash-landed on the island during World War 2 and has been living there quite happily among the natives, both monster and human. Of course there’s a definite possibility the dude could be out of his mind…

Since the film is called Kong you all know what’s coming and yes, the big hairy ape appears and he seems to have grown. He’s now 100 feet tall, still wears an angry look on his face, but when you look into his eyes, you can’t help but want to cuddle the big guy.

Unfortunately he’s not the only monster on the island. Living in deep underground tunnels, are these super  nasty, dangerous, vicious  serpent like predators nicknamed the Skullcrawlers and they are intent on wiping out Kong and his remaining species.

To say anymore would be giving too much a way and that’s something I do not want to do. But I will say, ‘Kong: Skull Island’ which opens in theaters, Friday, March 10th, 2017 is visually breathtaking, filled with humor,  excitement, great action, effects, surprises and is extremely entertaining, which is some times, all you want when you go to the cinema. I give it 5 bagels out of 5.