A new trailer for the upcoming 1970s throwback giant gorilla extravaganza, Kong: Skull Island was released into the wild this week and we’ve got stuff to say about it!
I have… mixed feelings about the new trailer. The first one wasn’t bad but lacked a bit of flavor. This one more than makes up for that. Perhaps overly so. I like the casting of John Goodman in this. He can play a total bastard and you still want to watch him, so that’s a plus. Here’s where I pause. The inclusion of John C. Reilly as a “quirky” character. I enjoy him, yes. But I’m unconvinced Kong needed a comic character. I assume they are trying to market this to a broader audience, e.g. younger. However, younger does not mean silly. My point is not all movies like this need to be a Marvel movie. That’s what the scenes with John Reilly make this feel like. This is just such an odd tone shift from the first trailer. I want to like this. I’ll probably see this. Just not sure adding an obvious slapstick character is a great idea.
— Brooke Brewer
Back in July my initial take on the first trailer for KONG: SKULL ISLAND was that it looked like a mess. Seeing the latest trailer made me reevaluate everything. The movie now looks like an APOCALYPSE NOW trip into the madness of mankind’s ability to destroy the very foundations of the world (was this thing written during the Trump Presidency?). Besides the madness on display, there is giant ape that has the body of Tom Hardy in warrior and then there’s John C. Reilly sporting a modern day Mel Gibson beard. So, come March I’m ready to step onto this island and see whatever the hell this movie is up to.
— Peterson Hill
King Kong is one of the biggest and best-known names in cinematic history with a reputation that’s known around the world. A giant gorilla from a mystery shrouded island in the South Pacific, he’s synonymous with big monsters and even bigger mayhem. His origins are as well-known and perpetually recounted as Batman’s but on a more monumental scale. The Ape Wonder of the World, revered as a king to the primitive human inhabitants on the monster saturated Skull Island is the last of his kind and master of his domain. A showman from New York captures him, brings him to the Big Apple and promptly allows him to escape to run amok climbing the Chrysler Building with Fay Wray in hand. “Twas beauty killed the beast” they say as the dead ape expires on the pavement.
The preview for the upcoming Kong: Skull Island appears at first to be another origins story for this legendary monster but you won’t have to backtrack to the 1930’s and suffer through a period piece with Jack Black. Instead, Skull Island is set in the Vietnam Era with a team of scientists in league with the U.S. military using explosive charges across the mysterious, titular land mass to help them explore the secrets it holds. Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, Brie Larson, John Goodman, and John C. Reilly fill out an all-star cast of characters that look to be pretty entertaining if nothing else.
From this initial trailer, Skull Island looks to be an action-packed adventure into somewhat familiar territory. I mean, let’s face facts; it’s another remake in a generation of uninspired remakes. It will no doubt have the well-worn origin story of an oddly anthropomorphic giant ape, the last of his kind in a harsh but dwindling wilderness being exploited by mankind. And it will almost certainly have an undercurrent of eco-awareness and conservation. That said, the characters seem driven to bring back proof of Kong’s existence, not the actual body itself and there seems to be ample room for conflict and growth. It’ll certainly have more character development and storytelling than previous iterations of the film.
As if that wasn’t enough, this is the prelude to a much bigger monster mashup expected by 2020 between King Kong and Japan’s own Godzilla.
Personally, I’m all kinds of excited about this. I love King Kong and all the creepy, crawly, Volkswagen-sized monster bugs crawling around Skull Island. Add a cast like this and an apparent plot into the mix and it looks like Kong: Skull Island might give us something epic to enjoy come 2017.
— Dan Lee