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405. King Kong (#—)

Posted on December 28, 2024 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, this week with special guest David Monaghan and Grace Duffy, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released every second Saturday at 6pm GMT, with the occasional bonus episode between them.

This week, Peter Jackson’s King Kong.

Vaudeville performer Ann Darrow has just lost her steady gig. A chance encounter with veteran filmmaker Carl Denham presents a unique opportunity. If Denham can stay one step ahead of his investors, he might just make the greatest motion picture that the world has ever seen. Tricking his cast and crew on to a boat, Denham sets sail for adventure, charting a course to the most dangerous location shoot in the history of cinema, a mythical locale described in whispers as “Skull Island.” Denham plans to make a star of the island’s more iconic inhabitant: the King that they call Kong.

At time of recording, it was not ranked on the list of the best or worst movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: andy serkis, animals, colonialism, david monaghan, grace duffy, imperialism, jack black, king kong, kong, monsters, Naomi Watts, peter jackson, spectacle, universal movies, universal pictures | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Kong – Skull Island

Posted on March 8, 2017 by Darren

Kong: Skull Island has an endearingly “pop” sensibility to it.

There are moments at which Kong: Skull Island feels more like an evocative theatrical-length montage than a film. This is only the second feature-length film from director Jordan Vogt-Roberts, and the movie has jarring and disorienting quality to it. Vogt-Roberts saturates the screen with reds and greens, whirls the camera at incredible velocity, and cuts at an impressive tempo. Even dialogue heavy scenes are constantly panning and cutting.

Sundown showdown.

This approach does no favours to the cast. Most of the players in Kong: Skull Island seem to have more trouble finding a consistent character throughline than mythical monsters. Tom Hiddleston seems quite lost for most of the film. Brie Larson probably does the best job of any of the major players, although the rapid-fire editing helps John C. Reilly seem suitably eccentric as the obligatory insane exposition character. Veteran performers like John Goodman and Samuel L. Jackson are forced to hold on for dear life.

However, none of this is a problem. For all its flaws, Kong: Skull Island never over-estimates how interesting its human characters are, mostly treating them as a vehicle to get to the promised monster mash. Vogt-Roberts’ direction might seem hyperactive and over-caffeinated, but it understands this. The camera and the cuts are always moving towards the monster, with the characters serving to deliver thematic dialogue and look suitably moody as seventies music plays over montage sequences.

“Oh, so that’s why they call it Skull Island.”

Kong: Skull Island never feels entirely cohesive as a feature film. That is not a fatal flaw. The movie feels weird and ethereal, the audience constantly kept off-balance by the heighten stylistic choices and the gusto with which the movie seizes upon these opportunities. After all, the eponymous island is a place where anything is possible and nothing is as it appears. It feels somewhat fitting that the movie drifts into a loose free-form style driven more by imagery than by story.

Kong: Skull Island feels in someways like a monstrous monster movie, and there’s something quite appealing in that.