Kong: Skull Island will be released in theaters on Friday, March 10th.

From Rotten Tomatoes:

Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ “Kong: Skull Island” reimagines the origin of the mythic Kong in a compelling, original adventure from director Jordan Vogt-Roberts. In the film, a diverse team of explorers is brought together to venture deep into an uncharted island in the Pacific – as beautiful as it is treacherous – unaware that they’re crossing into the domain of the mythic Kong. “Kong: Skull Island” stars Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, Oscar winner Brie Larson, John Goodman and John C. Reilly. The international ensemble cast also includes Tian Jing, Corey Hawkins, Jason Mitchell, John Ortiz, Thomas Mann, Shea Whigham, Toby Kebbell and Eugene Cordero.

From Wikipedia:

In 1973, a secretive organization known as Monarch finds an island that is shrouded in mystery and identified as the origin for new species. The resulting expedition to the island reveals that a giant monstrous ape named Kong is at the center of a battle for dominion over the island, against the apex predators, nicknamed the “Skull Crawlers”, responsible for wiping out his kind. As most of the expedition crew plans to fight for survival on the hostile island, some of them begin to see that Kong is worth saving.

When Legendary Entertainment announced they will be creating a MonsterVerse centered on a series of monster films featuring Godzilla and King Kong, I was excited at the thought of an updated and fresh take on two of the most iconic movie characters off all-time.

After 2014’s Godzilla, I was highly anticipating a new King Kong solo film. Going into this movie I had a mental check list of what I want to see in a King Kong movie and the movie delivered on that aspect. Whenever Kong was on the screen I felt those were the best part of the movie. Although we see him quickly in the beginning and then he disappears, it takes a while for him to return but once we get him back, we get plenty of Kong. Compared to 2014’s Godzilla, we got more screen time of Kong.

The movie had a ton of action and the special effects were amazing. I saw the film in IMAX 3D and was visually stunning to watch. It felt like I was watching a horror movie in the jungle with the use of monsters popping up all over Skull Island and the poor humans were at their mercy. The creatures that Kong has to fight did come off very terrifying. Watching Kong kick ass and fight other huge monsters was very exciting.

For the human characters, Tom Hiddleston and John C. Rilley were the best parts. I wish Brie Larson’s character had better dialogue to work with.

The soundtrack was fantastic. The movie is set in 1973 so the classic rock playlist was a perfect fit and help set the mood of a world dealing with the effects of the Vietnam War.

What this movie lacks is character development. There are a lot of characters shoehorned into this story and by doing so we don’t get a lot of backstory on them, therefore we are not emotionally invested in them and so I couldn’t care about the fate of certain characters in this film. Also, a lot of the humorous lines fell flat. John C. Reilly’s character had some goofy lines that had the audience at the screening laughing but for the other characters in this movie, their lines didn’t work as well.

Keep in mind, when it comes to monster movies like King Kong or Godzilla, we can’t just spend two hours watching these monsters fight, it’s the human element involved that give these movies depth and perception of why we need to care about these monsters.

Overall, it’s still a great popcorn movie, with the action and special effects, it’s a fun movie to escape from reality for a couple hours and enjoy a good ol’ monster fight on an exotic island.

This movie has summer blockbuster written all over it, which is why I’m surprised it’s being released in March, but I have come to realized the standard summer blockbuster season of May through August is now expanding to include March and April, which I’m fine with, more action movies spread throughout the year.

I’ll grade the movie 7 out of 10.

Check out the first trailer below.

Check out the second trailer below.

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