Thursday, March 9, 2017

KONG: Skull Island - Reboot of One of the Most Iconic Monster of All Time

This is another film that has caught our attention for the past month or so. It was telling the story of one of the most iconic monster for many decades, i.e King Kong. In addition, the trailer to the movie that has been playing for many weeks added an element of excitement and buzz which made my wife and I very enthusiastic to watch it. Which is why when the movie premiered yesterday, my wife had immediately bought the tickets in the morning via online. It was actually the first time we used online mode to buy tickets to a movie. A little bit late, right? But better late than never. Anyway, we shall start with the movie now.

Brief Story Line

It was 1973 when the US government had just stopped the Vietnam war and decided to pull out all their armies from Vietnam back to the US. Randa (John Goodman - 10 Cloverfield LanePatriots Day etc) an agent of Monarch which was a secret government body, and his colleague Brooks (Corey Hawkins - Straight Outta Compton, 24: Legacy TV series etc) who was a geologist, were able to convince the senator to have an expedition in a new found island in the Pacific ocean. The island was called Skull Island and was hidden all this time due to heavy rain and storm surrounding it.
The expedition itself was done together with a mission to charter the island by Landsat, led by Victor (John Ortiz - Fast and Furious 6, The Finest Hours etc) and accompanied by a photo journalist Mason Weaver (Brie Larson - The Gambler, The Room etc) who was looking for some information on the expedition which she suspected as a military mission due to the heavy artileries. Randa also requested the expedition to be guarded by military and a small army group led by Colonel Packard (Samuel L. Jackson - no introductions necessary) were assigned to do so. Packard was a decorated war hero who was not ready to finish the war and was more than happy to do 1 final assignment before leaving Vietnam.

Meanwhile, a tracker was required to help the team as well and Randa enlisted the help from a former British Special force named James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston - Crimson Peak and as Loki in Marvel cinematic worlds) who was willing to go with large amount of payment. After all the people required were gathered, off they went to the island. With the escort of many helicopters filled with the armies, they finally arrived at the island. Some of the helicopters were already on the ground and some were deploying bombs so that Brooks can analyze the land as per his original mission.

This was where the story became very suspenseful as the bombs apparently angered the "king" of the island called Kong which was a giant ape as tall as a building. All hell breaks loose when Kong started to catch, throw and even pull the helicopters down. No weapons seemed to be able to put him down and the expedition team were all scattered around. They were now separated into 2 groups. The first one was Conrad, Mason, Brooks, Victor, a biologist San Lin (Jing Tian - The Great Wall) and a soldier Slivko (Thomas Mann). The other group consisted of Packard, Randa, and some soldiers most notably the talkative Glenn (Jason Mitchell) and the easy going no worries Cole (Shea Whigham). While Packard was adamant to kill Kong, Conrad was thinking of how to ensure the group survived the island and reached the pickup location in 3 days time.

So could all of them survive and reach their intended destination? What other extraordinary things that they would find in the island? Watch them all in this very suspenseful movie.

End of Brief Story Line

Finally! A worthy reboot (remake) of the very famous monster! I was very very entertained with this movie. It was full of surprising scenes and many crazy fight scenes between Kong and the soldiers, plus Kong and other monsters. The special effects of this movie were absolutely wonderful. Kong was created using motion capture techniques and the rest of the monsters were very lifelike (and scary). The sound effects were very good. There were so many moments where we would be surprised by the sudden movement (with those shocking sounds) during the movie. 

What I loved about the movie was also the essence of King Kong story line like in previous movies were also captured, such as Kong's fight with major monsters, the intention of people to conquer him and even his fascination to the female character. And the time of the story which was in the 1970s also added a nice oldies feel to the movie. My wife also highlighted that she felt the movie was having a real 1970s sense which I think was due to the good make up (1970s hair style, suits) and equipments like the old choppers or Walkie Talkie you would usually see in movies with Vietnam wars.

Another thing that I loved about this movie was that the introductions of the characters did not take too long and it was moving in quite fast pace to the main story in the island. The film was almost perfect in providing nonstop entertainment and my wife and I also really enjoyed the full movie. At the top I have mentioned that the movie is a worthy reboot since I believe this movie excel in comparison to the 2005 version. Despite that movie's quite loyal to the earlier 1930s and 1970s versions, I felt that the 2005 movie was not giving the wow factor and scary feeling of what King Kong was supposed to make to audience. 

Anyway, in conclusion to this movie, I definitely say it is one of the coolest action monster movie. There was not a lot of drama in it, just pure adrenaline pumping action film. The movie also had some brief funny moments and touching moment before the end. Oh before I forgot, this movie has got a post credit scene. So better watch out for it coz the scene would provide you some very interesting insight and exciting future films. 

So for those of you who had not seen the movie yet, please make sure you watch it as I am sure you would be very entertained with this film. Those who prefer to watch drama or romance or Oscar winning movie, then I would recommend to see it without over thinking and just enjoy the movie.

Mike's movie moments rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

PS: Out of Topic a bit, we met the current Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Ahok) at the cinema last night as he just finished watching an Indonesian movie titled Jakarta Undercover. My wife even managed to take selfie with him. See below for yourself of how happy she was. LOL


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