Shale
Bluelighter
Kong: Skull Island
Movie Blurb by Shale
March 17, 2017
This movie opened last Friday but I was not in the mood to see another action-fantasy retelling. But, my friend "Publix Girl" said it was really good and worth seeing. So, today I biked up for an early matinee and it was a fun movie with the "King" Kong and a bunch of other large monsters on a pacific "Skull" Island, which has a perpetual cyclonic storm around it and was never discovered until satellite surveillance in the early 1970s.
Well, actually the movie opens in 1944 when two fighter pilots, an American and a Japanese shoot each other down and end up on the island continuing their war hand-to-hand. That is where they (and we) first meet Kong.
Then we go thru some history until we come to 1973 with the ending of the Vietnam war and when Bill Randa (John Goodman) head of a government office convinces them to send an expedition to the newly discovered Skull Island. He also needs a military escort for this expedition, which is easy to get with the newly unoccupied Vietnam Huey pilots under the command of Lt. Col. Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson), who is too pleased to have more war.
Military Support
Bill Randa also picks up an expatriate former British Captain James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston) in Saigon to work as a tracker. Also on the expedition is photojournalist Mason Weaver (Brie Larson) who actually does not relish war but records it for posterity.
Weaver & Conrad
So, that is the set up and a ship takes the soldiers and choppers to the edge of the storm so that they can fly in. OK, the trailers show a few choppers being destroyed by Kong but I counted 14 leaving the ship, so you know there is lots of action with plenty of ways to take out helicopters.
Kong v. Choppers
On the ground the mostly expedition group gets separated from the Army group and they come across an ancient ruins which is a walled settlement of natives and one old American pilot Hank Marlow (John C. Reilly) the remnant of the WWII pilots stranded on the island. He has some knowledge of the monsters that live under the island and come up to feed and that Kong is actually the last of his kind to fight them.
From there it is a matter of soldiers fighting monsters. Soldiers being eaten by monsters and our remaining fragment of soldiers and expedition scientists trying to get off Skull Island alive.
Run Weaver
It's a fun movie and the aggregate critics on Rotten Tomatoes gave it 79% Fresh. Their consensus was, "Offering exhilarating eye candy, solid acting, and a fast-paced story, Kong: Skull Island earns its spot in the movie monster's mythos without ever matching up to the classic original." IDK which "classic original" they are talking about. The 1933 B&W or the 2005 remake of that movie, set in the same time period. Anyhow, I'm with the 76% of audiences that liked this movie.
Movie Blurb by Shale
March 17, 2017
This movie opened last Friday but I was not in the mood to see another action-fantasy retelling. But, my friend "Publix Girl" said it was really good and worth seeing. So, today I biked up for an early matinee and it was a fun movie with the "King" Kong and a bunch of other large monsters on a pacific "Skull" Island, which has a perpetual cyclonic storm around it and was never discovered until satellite surveillance in the early 1970s.
Well, actually the movie opens in 1944 when two fighter pilots, an American and a Japanese shoot each other down and end up on the island continuing their war hand-to-hand. That is where they (and we) first meet Kong.
Then we go thru some history until we come to 1973 with the ending of the Vietnam war and when Bill Randa (John Goodman) head of a government office convinces them to send an expedition to the newly discovered Skull Island. He also needs a military escort for this expedition, which is easy to get with the newly unoccupied Vietnam Huey pilots under the command of Lt. Col. Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson), who is too pleased to have more war.
Military Support
Bill Randa also picks up an expatriate former British Captain James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston) in Saigon to work as a tracker. Also on the expedition is photojournalist Mason Weaver (Brie Larson) who actually does not relish war but records it for posterity.
Weaver & Conrad
So, that is the set up and a ship takes the soldiers and choppers to the edge of the storm so that they can fly in. OK, the trailers show a few choppers being destroyed by Kong but I counted 14 leaving the ship, so you know there is lots of action with plenty of ways to take out helicopters.
Kong v. Choppers
On the ground the mostly expedition group gets separated from the Army group and they come across an ancient ruins which is a walled settlement of natives and one old American pilot Hank Marlow (John C. Reilly) the remnant of the WWII pilots stranded on the island. He has some knowledge of the monsters that live under the island and come up to feed and that Kong is actually the last of his kind to fight them.
From there it is a matter of soldiers fighting monsters. Soldiers being eaten by monsters and our remaining fragment of soldiers and expedition scientists trying to get off Skull Island alive.
Run Weaver
It's a fun movie and the aggregate critics on Rotten Tomatoes gave it 79% Fresh. Their consensus was, "Offering exhilarating eye candy, solid acting, and a fast-paced story, Kong: Skull Island earns its spot in the movie monster's mythos without ever matching up to the classic original." IDK which "classic original" they are talking about. The 1933 B&W or the 2005 remake of that movie, set in the same time period. Anyhow, I'm with the 76% of audiences that liked this movie.
