Rob's Monday Morning Movie Review - Kong: Skull Island Is Dumb Fun

Due to the massive success that was the last time I wrote about movies (comment section made wildly racist comments about Get Out but Allison Williams posted my blog so it evened out), I think I’m going to start this new feature: Rob’s Monday Morning Movie Review (yes, I’m aware that it’s the afternoon, that’s the Barstool Difference). This week, I went to see Kong: Skull Island.

Before I get to the big fuckin’ ape, I want to talk trailers. There’s an old Dane Cook bit about how trailers are everyone’s favorite part about going to the movies, and while the internet has ruined that a little, it’s still true to a degree. So here’s some quick hits on the trailers I was shown…

The Circle- Big Brother movie where Tom Hanks plays a creepy Steve Jobs and spies on Emma Watson who’s maybe a rogue employee? John Boyega AKA Finn from Star Wars is also there? I’m soooooo in.

Power Rangers- This looks like one of the biggest pieces of shit ever made and I’m personally insulted that Bryan Cranston agreed to be apart of it.

War For The Planet Of The Apes- If this movie is half as good as the previous two, the ______ of the Planet Of The Apes trilogy will go down as one of the best ever. Woody Harrelson is added to this one, so I’m expecting nothing short of greatness.

Blade Runner 2049- This looks RAD from the 30 second teaser shown. Harrison Ford is my favorite actor of all time and I haven’t seen the original Blade Runner (I’m young, sue me), so I’ll definitely have to go back and watch that before this movie drops.

Ghost In The Shell- Real life anime movie where ScarJo plays an Asian. People are pissssssed. Movie looks so laughably bad that I’m excited for it.

Alright lets talk about the monkey. The newest King Kong reboot takes place in 1973 and follows a team of government agents and their military backup venturing out to Skull Island to “map it out” *wink wink nudge nudge*. Obviously the second they arrive, shit hits the fan, because motherfucking King Kong lives there.

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Almost all of the dialogue consists of cliche lines you’ve heard in every monster movie ever, but because this movie is so engulfed in the 70s, the cheesiness kinda fits! And on the bright side, if you’re going to see Kong: Skull Island, odds are you just want to see the gorilla wreck shop…and he does.

I’ll get into spoilers below, but overall, this is a pretty stupid movie that takes you on a hell of a ride. Don’t go in expecting an Oscar-worthy psychological thriller, go in expecting the first hour and a half of the 2005 King Kong movie cranked up to eleven. If you’re even slightly interested in seeing King Kong and bunch of other fucked up monsters make humans’ lives hell, or Brie Larson running around in a sweaty tank top (trust me, you are), Kong: Skull Island is worth the price of admission. Plus, it kinda sets up for the upcoming “Monsterverse”, so you don’t wanna be out of the loop when they do the eventual Godzilla vs King Kong.

*****SPOILERS BELOW*****
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I never really know the best way to go about this, so I’m doing bullet points like last time. Suck it, high school English teachers.

-The introduction to King Kong is the best scene in the movie, BY FAR. When that tree goes flying through the air and just RIPS through the helicopter, I reacted like my team won the Super Bowl. Those next ten minutes of Kong swatting them out of the air was basically porn. How about those fuckin’ idiots IMMEDIATELY shooting at a monkey the size of a building? You thought those shitty 1973 bullets would have any effect on him? Come on.

-Hank Marlow absolutely saved this movie. It was juuuuuust starting to veer off the ledge because I didn’t really care if the characters died or not, then along comes shipwrecked John C Reilly. When the credits roll and he goes home to see his family, I legitimately almost got teary. I don’t know if that was a factor of him being the ONLY lovable character or him being a great character, but it hit the right heartstrings for me.

-I saw this movie in 3D because the normal version was sold out, and even though I hate 3D, Kong’s final fight with the Skull Crawler was really cool. Just ducking and dodging chains and that gross tongue thing in my seat. I loved the nod to the 2005 T-Rex fight when Kong instantly tried to snap the Skullcrawler’s jaw, and how he used the island to his advantage.

-The bug scene from the 2005 movie is maybe the scariest scene in movie history, and this movie had it’s own version with a giant spider. Freaked me out and I looked away. It’s leg going through the guy’s mouth was p gnarly though.

-Nitpicking here, but the cinematography felt real try hard-y so often I was pulled out of the movie. For example, during Tom Hiddleston’s Indiana Jones-esque introduction, there’s just a random bird’s eye view shot from above a ceiling fan that was so weird I almost let out an audible “da fuq?”.

-John Goodman had the best death by far. That flash going off in the smoke was straight up HAUNTING. Brilliant scene.

-After credits “we’re assembling a team” scene was a very “we’re assembling a team” after credits scene. I’m not a huge monster movie guy, but from what I’ve gather via Google, they teased Godzilla (no duh), Mothra (who looks like a big dumb bug), Rodan (it’s a pterodactyl), and King Ghidorah (three headed dragon, this one’s cool).

Enjoyable movie, not as good as Godzilla (2014), but now I’m pumped up to see them fight. From what I saw here, Godzilla’s gonna FUCK King Kong up big time.