For every generation, there is a Kong. Ever since 1933, when King Kong ambled onto the screen, a new version of the big, misunderstood lug has landed in theaters every couple decades or so. Today, we have a new one—and, blessedly, he doesn’t feel the need to roar like the rest.
On paper, Kong: Skull Island has all the Kong requisites: a giant chest-pounding ape; a bunch of headstrong dopes who refuse to act like rational adults when confronted with said ape; a blonde. But beyond the broad strokes, Skull Island is very much its own movie, one that has much in common with Apocalypse Now as it does with Peter Jackson’s 2005 King Kong or any other entry in the Kong canon. Packed with videogame references and Nixon gags, director Jordan Vogt-Roberts’ movie does what so few reboots manage: honoring a classic without being slavish about it.
Much of this comes thanks to the movie’s re-imagined premise. Unlike 1933’s Kong or Jackson’s remake, Skull Island is set in 1973. The Vietnam War has just ended (yes, it's a Viet Kong) and two “Hollow Earth” believers—Bill Randa (John Goodman) and Houston Brooks (Corey Hawkins)—con their way on military-escorted mapping expedition to the titular island. They bring along "tracker" and obvious Heart of Darkness hat-tip James Conrad, and photojournalist/token woman Mason Weaver (played by a thank-god-she’s-here Brie Larson).
As soon as the gang gets to Skull Island, they find Kong, who is very not pleased to have visitors. He swats down a few choppers, which incurs the ire of Colonel Preston Packard, the Kurtz of the proceedings (played by Samuel L. Jackson, who always had a gift for Kurtzing). Packard is set on avenging his men, while all the sane people just want to get the hell off the island.
Like a lot of his franchise-adopting predecessors, Vogt-Roberts got his start in the indie world, most notably the Sundance fave The Kings of Summer. But unlike a lot of them, he didn’t get the keys to his dad’s Beemer and then fret over scratching the paint. (It was a particularly cold bit of shade when *Variety’*s Owen Gleiberman, writing for Variety, noted that Skull Island was “10 times as good as Jurassic World.”) Instead, Vogt-Roberts shot fight scenes with the eye of someone who knows his way around first-person shooters (there’s also a Zelda Easter egg), left out all building-climbing gymnastics, and threw in a zany performance by John C. Reilly as Hank Marlow (hey, another Heart of Darkness reference!). His film is still very much a Kong movie—it has a giant ape destroying things, that’s pretty much all you need—but it thankfully forgoes unnecessary retreading of the 1976 and 2005 films.
Another trope left at the door? The Blonde. Almost every Kong has had one (save for the one busy fighting Godzilla) and they always end up problematically in big guy’s clutches. Larson’s Mason is different: She does end up in the palm of Kong’s hand, but the weird interspecies romance that usually threatens to get a little too real is gone. Also, she’s a brunette. This is far from perfect—Larson is still one of only two women in the entire film—but it’s progress.
If there was ever a time to disrupt tropes and canon, it’s now, especially for something like Kong. As Hollywood continues to trot out adaptations and reboots, the predictability quotient of nearly everything in theaters increases drastically. But for something like a Kong movie, there’s less to draw from. No massive book series, no comics, just a handful of films. With far less to remain loyal to, movies like Skull Island have more room to experiment, and Vogt-Roberts deserves kudos for doing so. (Take note, everyone currently working on a Highlander or Escape from New York reboot.)
Folks who caught Skull Island this weekend got a taste of where the Kong experiment is going. (Spoilers ahead.) In a post-credits scene, Mason Weaver and James Conrad are shown as captives of Monarch (the shady organization from 2014's Godzilla), learning that Kong is just the beginning—other creatures lie below. It’s a set up for 2019’s Godzilla sequel, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, as well as everything else that’s about to come from the so-called MonsterVerse being produced by Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures. Right now, that shared universe includes Kong and a gang of kaiju, ranging from Rodan to Mothra—all of whom have decades of history that could weigh them down. If Skull Island is any indication, though, their future will look nothing like their past.
