Kong: Skull Island (2017) Starring: Tom Hiddleston,
Samuel L. Jackson, John Goodman, Brie Larson, Jing Tian, Toby Kebbell, John
Ortiz, Corey Hawkins, Jason Mitchell, Shea Whigham, Thomas Mann, Terry Notary,
and John C. Reilly. Directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts. Screenplay by Dan Gilroy, Max
Borenstein, Derek Connolly. Based on King Kong by Merian C. Cooper, Edgar
Wallace. Produced by Thomas Tull, Mary Parent, Jon Jashni, Alex Garcia. Run
time: 118 minutes. USA Color Science Fiction, Monster, Adventure.
It’s starting to seem like Merian C. Cooper and Edgar
Wallace’s King Kong is becoming like Shakespeare in Hollywood, a go-to
commodity that filmmakers hope they can make seem fresh and new, even though in
many ways, they’re telling the same old story over again. With Kong: Skull Island
there are some efforts to tell something different, though the main player King
Kong has pretty much the same lines he’s always had.
Now, if it seems the remakes are coming quicker than ever since it was only 12 years since Peter Jackson’s take on the big ape, it should
be noted that Kong is getting a new treatment for an old cause. There is a
battle to be fought between America’s Kong and Japan’s Godzilla but that
heavyweight fight has to be set up with a series of movies, of which Skull
Island is just a part. It is also why the film, originally set up at
Universal, ended up at Warner Bros.
