The Synopsis: Kong: Skull Island reimagines the origin of the mythic Kong in an updated CGI fest full of giant monsters. In this remake, a diverse team of explorers is brought together to venture deep into an uncharted island in the Pacific unaware that they’re crossing into the Kong country.

The Review: I really wanted to love this movie. I mean, I love all B-sci-fi movies and this one has an all star cast. I mean you can’t go wrong with Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Hiddleston, John Goodman and John C. O’Reilly right? Well, turns out you can when the story doesn’t have a lot of substance to it. The film seems to go from action scene to action scene leaving no room for actual character development. When there is a death, I found myself not really caring (I’m not a sociopath) because the script doesn’t give the viewer a reason to care. Other than the shallow script, the rest of the film is eye-popping. Kong has never looked better and the other prehistoric creatures are really cool and imaginative. In the end, I guess that’s why people would want to see this movie: the giant-sized creatures fighting. You don’t necessarily walk into a King Kong movie thinking, “this story is going to be amazing and full of twists and turns.” No, it’s more like, “I can’t wait to see this giant-ass monkey punch a giant squid in the ol’ food hole!” I get it. And for the most part, I’m with that crowd, hence my undying love for all things sci-fi and cheesy. It’s just that there were too many weak jokes and “witty” one liners that fell flat for me. The action and the visuals do save the movie and the post credit scene sets up a showdown with Godzilla which had me sufficiently geeked. All said, it’s worth renting if you just want to watch a fun movie where you can switch off the brain a bit.

Kong: Skull Island: 6.5/10