Kong Is Still The King

Kong: Skull Island allows cinema chair travelers to escape the urban jungle for that more authentic kind. A cliche storyline of explorers venturing deep onto an uncharted island doesn't rain on the fun of this neo-primal rainforest experience. The casting of Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, Tian Jing, and John Goodman offers a pleasurable balance of both action and characters.

While a character named Conrad clearly alludes to the Heart of Darkness author, this film is light hearted. The timeless message of the novella that civilization is little more civilized than our savage ancestral roots merely whispers behind the grunting and gunfire.

You might say this new "apocalypse then" is like that old Apocalypse Now, but less politico and more gonzo. Though a gigantic CGI water buffalo cannot match the acting heft of Marlon Brando, it does approximate the heft of his later-life girth and offers an equally menacing foe.

While the action and effects are engaging, Hollywood so seldom provides simple mindless entertainment without injecting mindless simpleton nonsense. Asian actress Tian Jing lets the producers check the diversity box, but they only allow her to look pretty and be silent. Meanwhile, Euro babe Brie Larson stomps around in combat boots with tank tops, thrusting her ample breasts and sticking her nosey nose everywhere to scold bad boys who only want to make enemies, kill creatures, and destroy nature. Journalists, scientists, and women care; executives, soldiers, and men don't. Is everyone totally clear on today's moral lecture from Professor Tinseltown? Good. Maybe the mentally-unstable but morally-incorruptible sages of Malibu will grace us with further pearls of wisdom during summer blockbuster season.

Did I like the film? How could I not? Like myriad things, rampaging gorillas make my Mexican woman horny, so I can't really lose shelling out a few pesos for a bunch of besos. Was it a good film? Gimme a break. It's a movie about a giant ape - what do you want me to say? Sheeesh!