In the age of remakes and reboots, and after the success of the recent Godzilla movie, the return of King Kong was inevitable. What wasn’t so predictable was how much fun this was going to be. Enough nods to the original version from 1933 – without being a retread as not as dumbed-down as you might think – it is highly enjoyable.
Set at the end of the Vietnam War, a disparate group of soldiers, scientists, and a photo journalist find themselves on an uncharted island, the home of the titular ape. In many ways, it follows the typical action / creature-feature formula. It is fairly easy to predict who will be killed off quickly and who will last the course. However, that didn’t in any way spoil the experience. The rendering of Kong is very impressive and the other monsters on the island brought back pleasant memories of watching films like The Land That Time Forgot on TV when I was a kid.
It was a great idea to set the film in 1973, with the ramshackle technology and the plausibility that the island may be undiscovered. Above all, it gives the screenwriters (Dan Gilroy, Max Borenstein, Derek Connolly, and John Gatins) to draw some clever parallels between the protagonists’ rights to be on the island and the American presence in Vietnam.
The star-studded cast all do a decent job with Tom Hiddlestone and Brie Larson making the most of the material. Best of all is Shea Whigham as one of the soldiers. Jordan Vogt-Roberts was not an obvious choice as director but he marshals the action really well and the final showdown between Kong and the largest skullcrawler is really well staged.
So, whilst not matching the impact or importance of the original, this is much better than the 1976 or 2005 versions.
Rating: 7.5 out of 10