The fourth major attempt to tell the King's origin story. It's certainly the most action-packed. But, it's a movie of massive contradictions. At times genuinely amusing and even a bit witty, and at others, full of cliched and downright silly tropes. There are some terrifically composed shots and scenes - but, also many WTF? angles and visuals (Really? Do we need a super-tight closeup of a soldier's face drinking out of a canteen? Is this a TV show or a 'Major Motion Picture'?). The SFX are very good with a decent use of proportion. The cast is better than the material, even if it continues to show Hollywood's bankruptcy in having yet another Best Actress winner (Brie Larson) use her "talents" to play 'the girl' in a blockbuster (hey, at least it's a big paycheck, right?). I know, I know, it's just a "big dumb B movie". But, for a reported budget of $200M (plus marketing), I expect a little more than out of it than a 60s Toho tyke-fest.

But, in the end it's a fairly forgettable affair without much heart (sorry, a two-minute scene of Brie touching Kong's face doesn't amount to much empathy after we've seen a bunch of soldiers and primitive creatures stomped, eaten and torn limb from limb for 100 minutes). On that score, I'll take Peter Jackson's flick, Jack Black and all. But, hey, it's better than the '76 Dino Kong.


Mild SPOILER:



Has there ever been another case where the End Credits gave away a Spoiler? As the end credits roll we see a credit that Toho owns the rights to Godzilla, Ghidrah, Mothra etc. And, that's BEFORE they actually show them in the After Credits tag scene!  

I don't think lack of heart is necessarily it's problem; John C. Reilly probably gives it more than most monster movies of its type manage even while being the comic relief, and while what Samuel L. Jackson is doing isn't "heart" in the traditional sense, the decision to go the Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now route rather than the go for the traditional pulp-adventure atmosphere is a good one and Jackson makes it work.  I kind of admire it not going the traditional route in that way; I don't think you're going to beat Jackson's for that sort of "heart".

(And, yeah, I'd put Peter Jackson's as the best in that category; the expanded runtime and historical perspective give Naomi Watts and Jack Black the chance to do more with their characters than the originators could.)

The knowledge that this is going to be part of some Legendary kaijuverse makes it a weird one for me to approach.  I enjoyed it a great deal - the effects and action are great, better than most monster-battle movies at showing massive power, evenly-matched fights, and humans actually managing to be a non-trivial part of the action - and the characters grew on me enough that I was actually a little disappointed to realize that they likely wouldn't be able to show up in the inevitable Godzilla vs King Kong movie because of the 40-year gap, and the waste that represented for the franchise dinged it a bit for me.  Unfair, in some ways,but not in others, if we recognize this as a part of a whole and judge it based on its contribution to that whole.