Film Review: Kong: Skull Island (2017)

This is a poorly-made movie and that immediately makes it the best of the Kong/Godzilla reboots that have bellowed and crashed their way into multiplexes over the last decade and a bit. I include Godzilla in the mix because whether the star monster is covered in scales or fur, the films they're in all follow the same playbook. Where previous iterations have gone wrong is in trying to be conventionally good films--you know, the kind with properly developed characters, plausible dialogue, and believable human relationships. That's not what monster movies (or "kaiju" films if you want to get excessively nerdy) are supposed to be about. The appeal of these films is in watching outsized critters kick ass. That's it. No one wants anything more. The original Toho films stuck to this formula and surrounded the smackdown sequences with preposterous dialogue, barely-there plots, and stock characters. Kong: Skull Island is a return to those roots.

The smashing, the roaring, and the screaming of terrified humans starts early and rarely lets up. The effects are fine, and kids, the real and traditional audience for this kind of film, should have a joyous time at the theatre. The rest of us can marvel at how little in the way of directorial competence and script writing ability one gets for a budget of $200m. There are far too many supporting actors (none of whom are introduced properly), all the dialogue is flat, and most of the actors seem unsure of what tone to adopt. Samuel L. Jackson takes his part very, very seriously, John C. Reilly is looking around for Will Ferrell to riff with, Brie Larson seems distracted, and Tom Hiddleston gives us the poshest ex-SAS mercenary ever--instead of a gun I was expecting him to be armed with a Fortnum & Mason's picnic hamper.

As shambolic as most of the film is, it at least delivers lots of visual thrills in a reasonable running time, something that none of the recent monster megafauna movies have managed to do. Peter Jackson's King Kong was farcical, Pacific Rim was tedious and visually muddy, and, the worst of all, Godzilla (2014) was perversely determined to not show off its titular hero. So let's hope the Kong: Skull Island sequels are all as enthusiastically dumb.

Film Review: Pacific Rim (2013)

Godzilla & Co.: the earliest form of Muppet?

I'm not going to waste a lot time rubbishing Pacific Rim, so here goes: the robot vs. monster action is dull and repetitive; the creatures all look the same; based on their skill, the actors, with the exception of Idris Elba, appear to have been recruited from infomercials; the dialogue is so flat and humorless it was probably generated by a Scriptbot3000; and director Guillermo del Toro's visual flair has gone AWOL. Pacific Rim reaches a new low in soulless, generic, and flavorless CGI summer blockbusters.

It is interesting, however, that a film so thunderingly bad and tedious has managed to avoid being booed out of the multiplexes. A variety of otherwise intelligent people I follow on Twitter have praised it, or at least enjoyed it, and the film has a 71% "fresh" rating on Rottentomatoes.com. I think the reason for the film's generally warm reception is that it finds itself at the intersection where nostalgia, fan boy enthusiasm and critical fatigue meet.

There probably isn't a person alive who doesn't enjoy old Japanese monster movies. Whether you're nine or ninety, the sight of foam and rubber monsters kicking over artfully constructed Japanese cities, or engaging in two-fisted smackdowns with each other is always entertaining. These were movies intended for kids, but their energy, comic seriousness, and low-tech visual creativity earned them an adult audience as well. Pacific Rim is meant to be a modern, updated take on this genre, and a lot of reviewers, casual and professional, mention this without bothering to point out that Pacific Rim simply drains the goofy charm out of the genre and replaces it with assembly line acting, directing and effects. Their glowing reviews say more about their warm and fuzzy memories of films like Godzilla vs King Gidorah than they do the merits of del Toro's Mechaturkey.

The fan boy/girl dynamic at the SF/fantasy end of the filmmaking spectrum now has a cult-like quality. For these people any film that appears in their chosen genre is ipso facto a good film. Attach one of their favourite actors, directors or screenwriters to the film and they respond with the enthusiasm of a crowd in St. Peter's Square greeting a new pope. Read Aintitcool.com and you get a clear picture of the undiscriminating love fans have for whatever is new and shiny in their field. Some reviewers, one senses, mute their criticisms of films like these because they're afraid of coming off as curmudgeonly or of not being "aware" of what's being referenced or paid homage to. And I suspect critical fans within the genre don't want to be called heretics.

Critical fatigue is something I'm very familiar with. Many years ago I earned my crust doing script analyses for various film and TV companies. Over the course of five or six years I must have read over 400 scripts and treatments. The vast majority were vapid, derivative or incompetent, some even as bad as Pacific Rim. The problem with having to read so many crap scripts is that when an OK one comes along the tendency is to overreact and praise it to the skies. A slightly good script reads like Citizen Kane after you've read several dozen clunkers. The same applies to film critics. When you're being served up a steady Hollywood diet of films like Hansel and Gretel, Jack the Giant Killer and Pacific Rim, you begin to praise qualities in these films that aren't actually there. When critics say nice things about Pacific Rim they're actually talking about elements in the film that remind them of their affection for the SF genre in general and giant monster movies in particular.

I'll close with a radical idea: why not make an old school Japanese-style monster movie that has a guy in a rubber monster suit? No CGI. This isn't an idle question since there's evidently yet another reboot of Godzilla in the works. The argument that audiences wouldn't sit still for something so...artisanal, doesn't really hold water. Tim Burton and Aardman Animations both produce new old-fashioned stop motion animation films that audiences have no problem embracing. Admit it: wouldn't you rather watch Godzilla tripping over styrofoam skyscrapers and grappling with a King Gidorah swinging erratically overhead on barely concealed wires? I'd even watch something like that in 3D.