I love giant monster movies. I have a particular love for classic kaiju films from Japan, but really any giant monster movie with decent special effects has my attention. It doesn’t matter if it is old or new, I’m in. You could say I was already in the bag for Kong: Skull Island before I even saw a frame of footage, but end results can always be disappointing. That doesn’t appear to be the case here. All of the previews thus far have been great and this final theatrical trailer for Warner Bros. upcoming uncharted island monster extravaganza looks fantastic…
This just looks smart from top to bottom. Granted it could turn out to be a big dumb slice of pulp entertainment, but I love the way it is playing with the structure of the classic King Kong movie mold without simply aping (hah!) what came before. This doesn’t look like yet another remake of the original 1933 masterpiece. It looks like a fresh and fun re-imagining of the material, filled with a stellar cast and great monster effects.
As someone who loved the 2014 Godzilla film, this looks even better. If that holds true, this monsterverse continues to be growing on excellent ground. It will be interesting to see how heavily Monarch, a monster-tracking organization introduced in Godzilla, factors into this film and how it expands that larger world, while also laying out a new mythology for Kong himself. The film is supposed to have some sort of tease for the films to come, 2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters and 2020’s Godzilla vs. Kong, thereby adding yet another cherry atop an already delicious-looking dessert.
Kong: Skull Island is the second installment of Warner Bros. mega-monster movie universe, following 2014’s Godzilla. It is directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts, from a screenplay by Dan Gilroy and Max Borenstein. The picture is Tecent Pictures and Legendary Pictures production, spearheaded by producers Thomas Tull, Jon Jashni, Alex Garcia, and Mary Parent. It stars Tom Hiddleston as ‘James Conrad’, Samuel L. Jackson as ‘Preston Packard’, John Goodman as ‘Bill Randa’, Brie Larson as ‘Mason Weaver’, John C. Reilly as ‘Hank Marlow’, Jing Tian as ‘San Lin’, Toby Kebbell as ‘Jack Chapman’, John Ortiz as ‘Victor Nieves’, Corey Hawkins as ‘Houston Brooks’, Jason Mitchell as ‘Glenn Mills’, Shea Whigham as ‘Earl Cole’, and Thomas Mann as ‘Reg Slivko’. Terry Notary, Marc Evan Jackson, Eugene Cordero, Thomas Middleditch, and Richard Jenkins also star.
Kong: Skull Island arrives in theaters on March 10th, 2017.
