Checked out Kong: Skull Island the, derp, latest King Kong flick. The general feeling is: it’s ok. It’s alright. It gets the job done but not without much flavor or brilliance. You can take it or leave it. Which is a shame – it looked promising and is technically the second movie in the giant monster shared universe which so far includes the last Godzilla movie (and will ultimately include a Godzilla vs. King Kong flick if these flicks make cash money).

So, yeah, this is a new King Kong story set in 1973 that does not involve capturing the ape, bringing him to the US, and then murdering him off a building. Instead, a bunch of scientists and Vietnam-era soldiers helicopter to Skull Island to investigate it before the Soviets spot it on their satellites. They run afoul of Kong and a bunch of other giant horrible creatures like spiders, stick-monsters, and Skull Crawlers (c)(tm).

Basically it’s an excuse to have monster fights and if that’s what you want to see, you get it and they look great. The first fight between Kong and the helicopters (seen in the trailer) is actually really good and effective (even if an inordinately large number of people survive a helicopter crashes). Later fights are less compelling and ultimate the big show-down between Kong and the Boss Daddy Skull Crawler doesn’t work so well, mainly because the Skull Crawlers are kinda boring baddies.

Of course, it doesn’t help that the humans are kind boring good guys. They get separated so the movie (kinda sluggishly) follows a group of soldiers led by Samuel L. Jackson and another group of mostly civilians led by Tom Hiddelston in a tight t-shirt and Brie Larson, also in a tight t-shirt (equal opportunity eye candy). Also among the crew are John C. Reilly adding comic relief, John Goodman, Corey Hawkins (Straight Outta Compton), and Tian Jing (straight outta The Great Wall). Most of these people are underwritten and boring and some just kind of get eaten or stepped on, making me wonder why name brand actors didn’t get a better death scene. But whatever.

Sam Jackson is the only one who actually feels like an interesting person… but part of that is me reading into his motivations. He’s a decorated soldier who seems really angry that Vietnam is basically over and he doesn’t truck well with losing an aerial battle with Kong. But his motivation is something you have to read into the movie and it feels like they needed to spend more time with his backstory. But the movie is really far more interested in getting to the monster fights that you can feel characters getting ignored or hand-waved away. It feels like there’s a number of scenes missing… but who cares since MONSTER FIGHTS!

Anyway, this movie isn’t a disaster but it also doesn’t completely work. We spend too much time with boring, underwritten humans and only some of the monster fights (MONSTER FIGHTS!!) are as entertaining as they should be. That said, the monster fights do look great and they aren’t boring so credit is due there. But it still feels like a missed opportunity.

Score: 75